Download Chapter 12, Section 1: Meaning and Characteristics of the Italian

Chapter 12
Recovery and Rebirth: The Age of the Renaissance
Key Terms
Renaissance
Hanseatic League
The Medici Family
The Book of the Courtier
Estates
Third Estate
condotierri
Federigo da Montefeltro
Peace of Lodi
Niccolò Machiavelli
Cesare Borgia
Renaissance humanism
Petrarch
Civic humanism
Neoplatonism
Renaissance Hermeticism
“liberal studies”
Francesco Guicciardini
Johannes Gutenberg
Masaccio
Paolo Uccello
Antonio Pollaiuolo
Sandro Botticelli
Donato di Donatello
Filippo Brunelleschi
Leonardo da Vinci
Raphael
Michaelangelo
Donato Bramante
Jan van Eyck
Guillaume Dufay
War of the Roses
Ferdinand and Isabella
The Spanish Inquisition
The Habsburgs
Maximilian I
John Wyclif
John Hus
Council of Constance
Exerabilis
Chapter 12, Section 1: Meaning and Characteristics of the Italian Renaissance



Renaissance means “rebirth.”
The Italian Renaissance was an intellectual and artistic movement that went from 1350-1500.
o The Italian Renaissance was not a mass movement 1; most notable figures were wealthy.
 Even though most Renaissance figures were wealthy, the Renaissance indirectly
influenced ordinary people, especially in the cities.
Above all, the Renaissance was an age of recovery from the calamitous 2 fourteenth century, a time
for the slow process of recuperating from the effects of the Black Death, political disorder, and
economic recession. This recovery was accompanied by a rediscovery of the cultures of classical
antiquity, especially ancient Greece and Rome.
Chapter 12, Section 2: The Making of Renaissance Society
1. Economic Recovery

As early as the thirteenth century, a number of north German coastal towns had formed a
commercial and military association known as the Hansa, or Hanseatic League.
o By 1500, more than eighty cities belonged to the League, which had established
settlements in many cities in England, Denmark, Norway, and the Holy Roman Empire
(Germany).
o Bruges, today in Belgium, became the economic crossroads of Europe in the fourteenth
century, serving as a meeting place for European merchants.

The Italians, and especially the Venetians, despite new restrictive pressures on their eastern
Mediterranean trade from the Ottoman Turks, continued to maintain a wealthy commercial
empire.
o Once the Americas were discovered, large territorial nations like Spain and Portugal were
able to economically overwhelm the smaller Italian city-states.
I. Industries Old and New

The economic depression of the fourteenth century affected patterns of manufacture; this means
that the Plague affected the ways that items were bought and produced.
1
2
movement or change taken upon by ordinary people (the masses)
disastrous
1



II.

Other new industries, especially printing, mining, and metallurgy, began to rival the textile
industry3 in importance in the fifteenth century.
Newly developed mining machinery along with economic freedoms for entrepreneurs enabled the
development of mining operations that could produce copper, iron, and silver.
o Especially valuable were the rich mineral deposits in central Europe, Hungary, the Tyrol,
Bohemia, and Saxony.
Expanding iron production and new skills in metalworking in turn contributed to the development
of firearms that were more effective than the crude weapons of the fourteenth century.
Banking and the Medici
The city of Florence regained its preeminence in banking in the fifteenth century, due primarily to
the Medici family. The Medici had expanded from cloth production into commerce, real estate,
and banking.
o The Medici suffered a rather sudden decline at the end of the century due to poor
decisions in awarding a series of uncollectable loans.
2. Social Changes in the Renaissance

The Renaissance inherited its social structure from the Middle Ages; society was fundamentally
divided into three classes, or estates.
o The First Estate was the clergy.
o The Second Estate was the nobility.
o The Third Estate was everyone else.
I. The Nobility

Nobles faced financial difficulties due to the Plague, but they were able to survive as a social
class.
o The Nobility made up between two and three percent of the population in most countries,
but they dominated society by serving in the military and holding important political
posts. Increasingly, they also pursued education.

The Book of the Courtier by the Italian Baldassare Castiglione was first published in 1528.
Describing the three basic attributes of the perfect courier, 4 Castiglione’s book was a fundamental
handbook for European aristocrats for centuries.
o The perfect noble was to serve his prince in an honest and effective way.
II. Peasants and Townspeople

Peasants made up the overwhelming mass of the Third Estate and continued to constitute 85 to 90
percent of the population of Europe, except in the highly urbanized areas of northern Italy and
Flanders.

Because of the introduction of a money economy 5 and the Black Death, by the end of the fifteenth
century, serfdom was declining in western Europe, and more peasants were becoming legally free.

The remainder of the Third Estate centered on the inhabitants of towns and cities. These people
were widely separated socially and economically.
o At the top of urban society were the patricians, or wealthy businesspeople.
o Below the patricians were the petty burghers – the shopkeepers, artisans, and guild
members – who were largely concerned with providing goods and services for local
consumption.
o Below the petty burghers were the property-less workers and the unemployed.
 These people constituted 30–40 percent of the city population and lived squalid
and miserable lives.
o Beneath the property-less workers and unemployed were the slaves.
III. Slavery in the Renaissance

Agricultural slavery existed in the Early Middle Ages but had declined; it was then replaced by
serfdom by the ninth century.

Slavery reappeared first in Spain in the fourteenth century during the Reconquista when soldiers
retaking Spain from the Moors6 made some of their prisoners slaves.
3
clothing industry
nobleman
5
An economy that operates on money rather than on barter or exchange of services.
4
2
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Moreover, the death of workers from the Black Death led politicians to legalize slavery in many
places to make up for the lost labor.
o Slaves for the Italian market were obtained primarily from the eastern Mediterranean and
the Black Sea region. There were also slaves from Africa.
By the end of the fifteenth century, slavery had declined dramatically in the Italian cities for three
reasons:
1. Slaves were freed for humanitarian reasons.
2. Black Sea markets for slaves were closed to Europeans by the Turks, the conquerors of
the Byzantine Empire.
3. Many people viewed slaves as a potential risk (they could get angry and rebel), and
thought they were not worth the risk.
By the sixteenth century, slaves were only evident in princely courts.
3. The Family in Renaissance Italy

The family played an important role in Renaissance Italy; for many, the family bond was a source
of security in a dangerous world.
I.
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II.
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III.
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Marriage
Most marriages in upper class Renaissance Italy were arranged marriages. 7 An important
determinant of these marriages was the dowry, or the payment made by the wife’s parents to the
husband’s parents.
Families were organized around the father.
o Children did not become adults on reaching a certain age; adulthood came only when the
father agreed before a judge that adulthood had been reached.
Children
A woman’s job in Renaissance Italy was centered on childbirth, which was both frequent and
dangerous.
Sexual Norms
Since marriages were arranged, they were often sexually and psychologically troubled. The fact
that men were often older than women in these marriages also produced issues.
The institution of prostitution continued as an accepted evil in Renaissance Europe.
Chapter 12, Section 3: The Italian States in the Renaissance

By the fifteenth century, five major powers dominated the Italian peninsula: Milan, Venice,
Florence, the Papal States, and Naples.
1. The Five Major States

In 1447, Francesco Sforza, one of the leading condotierri8 of the time, took advantage of the
confusion after the death of the last Visconti ruler, conquered Milan and became its duke.
o Milan had a strong central government that was very successful in collecting taxes.

Venice remained an extremely stable political entity, governed by an oligarchy 9.
o At the end of the fourteenth century, Venice worried its neighbors when it tried to
expand.
I. Republic of Florence

Florence was run by an oligarchy; this oligarchy claimed Florence was a republic, but it was not.
o In 1434, Cosimo de’ Medici took control of the Florentinian government. He controlled
Florence until 1464. His grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent ran the government from
1469 – 1492.
6
Spanish Muslims, some of whom also lived in northern Africa.
a marriage set up by the participants parents, sometimes without the participants even knowing each
other.
8
a mercenary soldier (soldier who sells his services to the highest bidder).
9
a style of government in which a few very powerful people rule.
7
3
Papal States
After losing much of their power in the area around Rome during the Great Schism of the
fourteenth century, the Papal States government spent much energy in the fifteenth century
regaining lost power over the region.
III. Kingdom of Naples

Fought over by the French and Aragonese (people from the Spanish state of Aragon), the
Kingdom of Naples remained a backward monarchy, consisting largely of poverty-stricken
peasants dominated by unruly nobles.
II.

2. Independent City-States

Besides the five major states, there were a number of independent city-states under the control of
powerful ruling families that became brilliant centers of Renaissance culture in the fifteenth
century.
I. Urbino

Federigo da Montefeltro ruled Urbino from 1444 – 1482. He was one of the greatest patrons 10 of
Renaissance culture.
o He was such a benevolent11 ruler, that he did not need a bodyguard while walking around
Urbino – people treated him as one of their own.
II. The Role of Women

The most famous ruling woman of the Renaissance was Isabella d’Este. She was well known for
her intelligence and political wisdom.
3. Warfare in Italy

In Italy, the political concept of balance of power developed. A balance of power ensures that no
one state can gain an advantage over another.
o Signed in 1454, the Peace of Lodi developed an alliance system whereby Milan,
Florence, and Naples teamed up against Venice and the Papal States.

In 1494, because he felt isolated, duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza invited King Charles VIII of
France to invade his rivals in Italy; Charles VIII brought 30,000 troops in the invasion.
o Other Italians turned to the Spanish for help; Ferdinand of Aragon agreed to help.

Italy thus became a battleground between the French and Spanish for decades.

Rather than develop as a large national state that could fight off the French and Spanish, most
Italians remained loyal to their individual states, thereby remaining relatively small in size and
power.
4. The Birth of Modern Diplomacy

The modern diplomatic system was a product of the Italian Renaissance.

During the Middle Ages, when an ambassador12 visited other countries, it was understood that this
ambassador acted for the general welfare, not just for his own country.

During the Renaissance, the duty of the ambassador changed so that ambassadors were simply
agents of their country. In other words, diplomacy became more selfish; ambassadors no longer
acted for the general welfare, only for their own state.
5. Machiavelli and the New Statecraft

No one gave better expression to the Renaissance preoccupation with political power than Niccolò
Machiavelli (1469 – 1527).

Machiavelli entered public life13 for the Florentine republic in 1498, four years after the Medici
family had been expelled from the city.
10
customers
friendly
12
a diplomat who visits other places
13
“entered public life” means that he started working for the government of Florence. If someone works
for the public, it means they work for the government. If someone works in the private sector, it means
they do not work for the government.
11
4
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I.

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For the next 14 years, as Italy was being carved up by the French and Spanish, Machiavelli
worked for the Florentine government, learning all that he could about politics.
In 1512, the Medici returned to power in Florence. Machiavelli, along with other republicans 14
left to avoid political persecution.
o While in exile, Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a famous treatise on political power.
The Prince
Machiavelli’s politics stemmed from two major sources: his preoccupation with Italy’s political
problems and his knowledge of ancient Rome.
Medieval political theorists believed that a ruler was justified in exercising political power only if
it contributed to the common good of the people he served; moreover, leaders were supposed to
act upon Christian moral principles.
o In The Prince, Machiavelli rejects the idea that a ruler must always remain moral by
Christian standards. He asserted that a prince’s15 attitude toward power must be based on
an understanding of human nature, which he perceived as basically self-centered. In
other words, the prince must be willing to be “uncharitable, inhumane, and irreligious” in
order to better his state.
Machiavelli greatly admired Cesare Borgia, who used ruthless measures to achieve his goal of
carving out a new state in central Italy.
Chapter 12, Section 4: The Intellectual Renaissance in Italy
1. Italian Renaissance Humanism

Renaissance humanism was an intellectual movement based on the study of the classical literary
works of Greece and Rome.

Humanists study the liberal arts – grammar, rhetoric, poetry, ethics, and history – all based on the
writings of ancient Greek and Roman authors. These subjects are now called “the humanities.”
I. The Emergence of Humanism

Petrarch has often been called the father of Italian Renaissance humanism.
o He was the first intellectual to characterize the Middle Ages as a period of darkness,
promoting the mistaken belief that medieval culture was ignorant of classical antiquity.
o Petrarch also inaugurated 16 the humanist emphasis on the use of pure classical Latin.
Cicero became a model for prose17 and Virgil the model for poetry.
II. Humanism in Fifteenth Century Italy

In Florence at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the humanist movement became closely tied
with the idea of civic spirit; this is the idea of civic humanism, that humanists should be involved
in government and use their rhetorical training in the service of the state.

The classical Roman Cicero, who was both a statesman and an intellectual, became their model.
III. Humanism and Philosophy

In the second half of the fifteenth century, there was a dramatic upsurge of interest in the works of
Plato, especially evident among the members of an informal discussion group known as the
Florentine Platonic Academy.
o These people were Neoplatonists; they sought to synthesize the works of Plato with
Christianity.
 Neoplatonism was based on two primary ideas:
1. All substances are in a hierarchy from the lowest form of physical matter
(plants) to the purest spirit (God); humans are in the middle of this hierarchy. A
human being’s highest duty is to ascend that hierarchy and become one with
God.
2. All parts of the universe are held together by bonds of love.
14
people who believe in a representative style of government
By “prince,” Machiavelli meant the ruler or leader.
16
began
17
non-poetic written or spoken language (straight forward language without “artistic” additions)
15
5
IV.
Renaissance Hermeticism
Hermeticism was an intellectual movement that taught that divinity is embodied in all aspects of
nature.

The Hermetic manuscripts contained two kinds of writings.
1) The first stressed the occult sciences – astrology, alchemy, and magic.
2) The second focused on theological beliefs and speculations.
 Many Hermetic writings espoused pantheism, the belief that God is present in
everything and that in the end, there is only one truth.18
 The most prominent Hermetic magi19 was Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola (1463 – 1494) who wrote the Oration of the Dignity of Man.

2. Education in the Renaissance

Believing that human beings could be drastically changed by education, the Renaissance
humanists wrote books on education and developed schools based on their ideas.
o Most famous was the school founded in Mantua, Italy in 1423 by Vittorino da Feltre.
 Vittorino based much of his educational system around the study of liberal
studies. Defined in Concerning Character by Pietro Paolo Vergerio (1370 –
1444), the “liberal studies” included history, ethics, rhetoric, 20 grammar, poetry,
mathematics, astronomy, music, and physical education.

Humanist schools favored education for the rich. Moreover, in order to pave the way for a
domestic life, women were encouraged to concentrate on subjects like religion and morals rather
than mathematics and science.

Humanist education’s aim was not to create great scholars, but to create great citizens, as shown
by Vittorino: “Not everyone is obliged to excel in philosophy, medicine, or the law, nor are all
equally favored by nature; but all are destined to live in society and to practice virtue.”
3. Humanism and History

Humanism had a strong influence on the writing of European history. Their division of the past
into ancient world, dark ages, and their own age provided a new sense of chronology or
periodization in history.

Humanists also secularized, or de-emphasized divine intervention in favor of human motives,
stressing political forces or the roles of individuals in history.
I. Guicciardini

Francesco Guicciardini (1483 – 1540) was the greatest historian of the Renaissance. His History
of Italy and History of Florence show that his purpose in writing history was to teach lessons,
even if those lessons were not obvious.
4. The Impact of Printing

The invention of the process of printing culminated between 1445 and 1450; in 1455, Johannes
Gutenberg completed the first printing press with movable type.

Printing became one of the largest industries in Europe, and its effects were soon felt in many
areas of European life. The printing press made all facets of education easier for everyone to
attain. Furthermore, without the printing press, the new religious ideas of the Reformation would
never have spread as rapidly as they did in the sixteenth century.
Chapter 12, Section 5: The Artistic Renaissance

Renaissance artists considered the imitation of nature their primary goal. Also, artistic standards
reflected a new attitude of mind, one in which human beings became the focus of attention.
18
This pantheism is also one of the core ideas of Hinduism, an ancient, but still widely practiced, Indian
religion.
19
Hermetic sage or wise-person
20
the study of proper speech.
6
1. Art in the Early Renaissance

Giotto began the artistic movement which concentrated on imitating nature in the fourteenth
century. This art philosophy was not taken up again until Masaccio (1401 – 1428) in Florence.
o Masaccio’s cycle of frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel has long been regarded as the first
masterpiece of Renaissance art.

This new Renaissance style was absorbed and modified by other Florentine painters in the
fifteenth century. An experimental trend developed that took two directions:
1. The first direction was an emphasis on the mathematical side of painting, most
specifically the mastery of the laws of perspective.
 Paolo Uccello (1397 – 1475) exemplifies this mathematical style.
2. The second direction involved the investigation of movement and anatomical
structure.
 Antonio Pollaiuolo’s The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian shows the
human body under stress.

During the last decades of the fifteenth century, a new sense of invention emerged in Florence,
especially in the circle of artists and scholars who formed part of the court of the city’s leading
citizen, Lorenzo the Magnificent.

Sandro Botticelli’s interest in Greek and Roman mythology was evident in one of his most famous
works, Primavera.
o Botticelli’s figures are well defined in the Early Renaissance tradition, but they have an
other-worldliness that moves beyond the realism of the Early Renaissance.

Donato di Donatello (1386 – 1466) was a famous Renaissance sculptor; in one of his most famous
statues, David, Donatello showed his mastery of the styles of antiquity.

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446) was a famous Renaissance architect. He designed a dome that
topped the Duomo, a cathedral in Florence; he also designed the interior of the Church of San
Lorenzo, a space designed to fit human, not divine, necessities.
2. The Artistic High Renaissance

The final stage of Renaissance art was the High Renaissance (1480 – 1520). The High
Renaissance was marked by the increasing importance of Rome as a new cultural center of the
Italian Renaissance; it was dominated by the works of three artistic giants:
1) Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
2) Raphael (1483 – 1520)
3) Michelangelo (1475 – 1564)

Leonardo represents a transitional figure in the shift to High Renaissance principles.
o Leonardo studied everything; he even dissected human bodies to understand more clearly
how human anatomy works.
o Leonardo moved beyond the realism of the Early Renaissance; rather, he was
preoccupied with showing realistic entities or people in ideal forms.
 For example, The Last Supper shows all of Jesus’ apostles revealing their inner
self through their gestures. Leonardo knew that all of Jesus’ apostles probably
didn’t react in the way depicted in the painting. Instead, he shows a
representation that could be real in an ideal situation.

Raphael is best known for his School of Athens, which reveals a world of balance, harmony, and
order – the underlying principles of the art of the classical world of Greece and Rome.

Michelangelo, an accomplished painter, sculptor, and architect, was another giant of the High
Renaissance.
o Influenced by Neoplatonism, he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican;
the most famous part of this painting is the Creation of Adam, where God is shown
giving Adam his divine spark.
o Michelangelo also sculpted David, a 14-foot high marble statue. Through David,
Michelangelo proclaims the beauty of the human body and the glory of human beings.

Donato Bramante (1444 – 1514) was an architect of the Renaissance; he designed the Tempietto in
Rome and the basilica at Saint Peter’s Square.
7
3. The Artist and Social Status

Renaissance artists reached a level of popularity unseen by creative geniuses of the Middle Ages.
This shows that people during the Renaissance were more willing than people of the Middle Ages
to see artists as heroes; whether this occurred because of social changes or because Renaissance
creative geniuses were particularly special is a subject of historical debate.

As famous artists were more welcomed into intellectual circles, they adopted and embodied more
intellectual art.
4. The Northern Artistic Renaissance

Most artists from northern Europe during the Renaissance focused on being incredibly detailed, as
shown by Jan van Eyck’s Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride.
o Most Italian Renaissance artists dismissed northern Renaissance artists as talented, but
lacking in feeling.

After making two trips to Rome, Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528) combined northern detail and
southern Renaissance style in his Adoration of the Magi.
5. Music in the Renaissance

Guillaume Dufay (1400 – 1474) was the most important composer of the Renaissance. Born in
northern France, Dufay lived for a few years in Italy and was therefore well suited to combine the
late medieval style of France with the early Renaissance style of Italy.

Dufay composed secular songs, and therefore helped move music into the non-religious world.
Chapter 12, Section 6: The European State in the Renaissance

French, Spanish, and English monarchs all succeeded during the second half of the fifteenth
century in expanding their political authority. Rulers in central and eastern Europe were not as
successful.
1. The Growth of the French Monarchy

The Hundred Years War left France exhausted. Because of his success in the war, the
parliamentary body in France, the Estates-General, gave Charles VII a great amount of authority
both over taxation and military matters.
o Charles established a royal army composed of cavalry and archers.
o He received the right to levy the taille, an annual direct tax; perhaps more importantly, he
did not need any future approval from the Estates-General to continue this policy.

Once they gave the king the permission to tax directly, the Estates-General lost
much of what little power it had.

King Louis XI struggled to suppress the power of the nobles in France. A major challenger to his
throne was Charles the Bold. Once Charles the Bold died, Louis XI militarily seized much of
Charles’ former lands.

In this way, Louis XI greatly expanded the power and scope of the French throne.
2. England: Civil War and a New Monarchy

The War of the Roses broke out in the 1450’s. Eventually, Henry Tudor, the duke of Richmond
emerged victorious and established the Tudor dynasty; Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII
in 1485.

During his reign, Henry limited the military power of English nobles.
o He abolished “livery and maintenance,” the policy that allowed nobles to have a personal
military.
o He established the Court of Star Chamber where he could put dissident nobles on trial;
this court used no juries and allowed torture as punishment.

Since he did not often have to call Parliament (Parliament’s main function was to grant funds, and
since he avoided war, he didn’t have to levy any enormous taxes), Henry was able attain great
power for future British monarchs. Overall, Henry established a prosperous, stable monarchy
8
3. The Unification of Spain

The process of unification began in Spain when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile
married in 1469.
o They replaced the formerly aristocratic royal council with middle-class lawyers who were
trained to do the monarch’s bidding.
o They reorganized and rebuilt the Spanish military; by the sixteenth century, the Spanish
army was the best in Europe.
o They convinced the pope to allow them to select Spanish church officials; this ensured
that the Church was under state control.

Ferdinand and Isabella initiated a policy whereby Jews and Muslims were coerced to convert to
Christianity; some refused.
o Jews and Muslims that did convert were under constant scrutiny, 21 forced to show their
sincerity about Christianity after their conversion. Former Jews and Muslims suspected
of being insincere Christians were put on trial; these trials were called the Spanish
Inquisition.
o Jews and Muslims that did not convert were brutally expelled from Spain, the Jews in
1492 and the Muslims in 1502.
4. The Holy Roman Empire: The Success of the Habsburgs

The Habsburgs, an exceedingly wealthy family from Austria, came to control the Holy Roman
Emperorship after 1438.

Rather than conquer, the Habsburgs preferred to gain lands through marriage.
o When Maximilian I (r.1493 – 1519) became emperor, he tried, and failed, to consolidate
power through diplomatic means. Despite his diplomatic failures, he did, unwittingly 22
gain power for future Habsburgs through marriage.

Maximilian married Mary of Burgundy; their son Philip was married to Joanna,
the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella; Philip and Joanna’s son, Charles, though
a series of unexpected deaths, became heir to the Habsburg, Burgundian, and
Spanish lines, making him the leading monarch of his age.
5. The Struggle for Strong Monarchy in Eastern Europe

In eastern Europe, leaders struggled to achieve a strong centralized state. Although the population
was mostly Slavic, there were islands of other ethnic groups that caused difficulties. Religious
differences also troubled the area, as Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox Christians, and pagans
confronted each other.
o In 1511, nobles seized control of the Polish government and forced the peasantry into
serfdom. Moreover, they established the right to elect their king, ensuring that they
would be in charge of government, not the king.
o Bohemia had ethnic and religious troubles that allowed the nobles to seize power at the
expense of the king.
o Hungary, because it was Catholic, had strong ties with western Europe.

From 1458 – 1490, King Matthias Corvinus created a strong, well organized
monarchy. After his death, however, his accomplishments were undone.
o In 1462, Ivan III was able to establish a Russian state based in Moscow. Gradually, he
expanded at the expense of the Mongols and other Russian principalities in the area.
6. The Ottoman Turks and the End of the Byzantine Empire

The Ottoman Turks, beginning in northeastern Asia Minor, 23 began to conquer other Turkish
states, most notably the Seljuk Turks.

In 1389, the Ottomans attacked and defeated Serbia at the Battle of Kosovo.
o By 1480, Bosnia, Albania, and the rest of Serbia were all part of the Ottoman Empire.
21
observation
without knowing it
23
modern day Turkey
22
9


In 1453, the Ottomans attacked and took over Constantinople. This marked the end of the
Byzantine Empire.
By the end of the fifteenth century, the Ottoman Turks were looking towards Hungary, Austria,
Bohemia, and Poland.
Chapter 12, Section 7: The Church in the Renaissance

The Council of Constance brought an end to the Great Schism in 1417, but that was not the end of
the Church’s troubles.
1. The Problems of Heresy24 and Reform
I. Wyclif and Lollardy

In the fourteenth century, John Wyclif, an English theologian, began to challenge the general
practices of the Catholic Church. His followers were known as Lollards.
o Specifically, he challenged the pope’s authority and stressed the Bible as the sole
Christian authority. Additionally, he believed that the Bible should be translated from
Latin into the vernacular languages.
II. Hus and the Hussites

Wyclif’s ideas spread to Bohemia and encouraged a group of Czech Christian reformers to also
attack the power of the Church.

The Council of Constance, the Council put in charge of ending the Great Schism, invited John
Hus to take part in the discussions in 1415. On his way there, they kidnapped him, tried him, and
burned him at the stake.
o Hus’s followers in Bohemia began a revolt; these revolts ransacked the Holy Roman
Empire until 1436.
III. Reform of the Church

The Council of Constance also attempted to retain power for future Catholic councils; this was
called the conciliar movement.
o The Council passed two reforms:
1) Sacrosancta – The Church council received its authority from God. Even the pope
had to follow its authority.
2) Frequens – Councils should be held often to ensure that reform would continue.

No pope actually observed these reforms passed by the Council of Constance.
o In 1460, Pope Pius II issued Exerabilis, a statement condemning as heretical any council
that claimed to have authority over the pope.
2. The Renaissance Papacy

Popes during the Renaissance concerned themselves with temporal matters more so than with
spiritual matters.
o Julius II was known as the “warrior pope” because of his use of his military against his
enemies.

Popes were not hereditary monarchs (they were elected by the College of Cardinals), but during
the Renaissance, many popes gave family members important Church positions. This nepotism,
along with their concern for temporal matters, allowed the papacy to retain an enormous amount
of political power during the Renaissance.
o Alexander VI allowed his son, Cesare Borgia, to build a powerful state out of parts of the
territories of the Papal States.
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an opinion that is at variance or different than that of those in power
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