Evolving Toward the Modernfrom classical antiquity and Christian-- rethinking
of the place of human beings in a Christian “chain
of being.”
• Began in the Italian Cities in the early 14th century
and spread to northern Europe by 1500
• Led to changes in consciousness among the elites,
to new political orders, to new religious beliefs.
Renaissance Europe
REFORMATION—1517-1648
a Catholic South
Catholicism
• Scholasticism—brought renewed attention to classical philosophy
• Crusades—rise of Italian cities and contact with far-off cultures and ideas
• Black Death—weakened hold of medieval institutions and beliefs
• Conspicuous consumption among families made wealthy by renewed trade—they became Renaissance patrons
Black Death--1348
• Just as humanism spawned a “can do” spirit
among the elite, the black death challenged
the assumptions of medieval society for the
masses.
values were different from those of his own
day.—compare him with Dante.
• Lorenzo Valla (1406-1467) demonstrated
a forgery
Petrarch & Laura: For a Woman he would never know; for a woman he would never have; he
would change the world forever.
A Poem from Petrarch’s Il Canzoniere
It was on that day when the sun's ray
was darkened in pity for its Maker,
that I was captured, and did not defend myself,
because your lovely eyes had bound me, Lady.
It did not seem to me to be a time to guard myself
against Love's blows: so I went on
confident, unsuspecting; from that, my troubles
started, amongst the public sorrows.
Love discovered me all weaponless,
and opened the way to the heart through the eyes,
which are made the passageways and doors of tears:
so that it seems to me it does him little honour
to wound me with his arrow, in that state,
he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed.
RENAISSANCE philology
supported Humanism
• Humanism didn’t seek to replace God with man but gloried in man as God’s special creation.
• Humanists like Pico Della Mirandola 1463- 1494) gloried human potential in his De hominis dignitate: “This is the culminating gift of God, this is the supreme and marvelous felicity of man…that he can be that which he wills to be.”
Renaissance Humanism
• Really it was a Christian Humanism but a humanism that a corrupt church hierarchy could hardly control.
• It was heavily influence by Platonism (Plato’s theory of the forms) which was reintroduced into Western Europe with the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453.
• Orthodox Catholic theology had a strong tradition of SCHOLASTICISM—mixing of Greco-Roman Philosophy with Christian Doctrine
Renaissance Art
• Reflected need of wealthy Kings, capitalists, and
popes for conspicuous adornment.
creation.
focused on exact detail and their scenes of everday
life serve as an important historical source.
Giotto (1267-1337)—The Annunciation to Mary—
Chapel at Scrovengni
linking of Pagan and Divine Love
Triad of Renaissance Greats
(“La Giocanda”
Raphael’s “La Fornarina” [Baker’s Daughter”]
New Political Ideas
• Humanists looked to history to explain political success and failure.
• Inspired by Machiavelli, Dynastic States justify their actions in two ways: appeal to the inherent Christian morality in the action and raison d’etat or reason of state.
• Powerful Monarchs—France’s Louis XI, the Spider King, England’s Henry VII and Henry VII, and Spain’s Carlos I (Charles V)--suppress nobles, violate civil liberties, challenge the church, and attempt to build vast empires overseas to enhance the power of their states.
Wars of the Roses in England
(1455-1485)
monarchy
reward their supporters and cultivate a
nascent English Nationalism
Edward V (1483)
Henry IV John Beaufort
Tudor Claim to the Throne (Tie to House of Lancaster)
100 Years War
• Fought between English Royal Family (Plantagenet) and the French House of Valois.
• Disputed Succession after death of last Capetian
• England nearly secured war following its victory at Agincourt (1415)
• Joan of Arc inspired Charles VII (French Claimant to throne) to oust English
• English expelled from France in 1453
• Louis XI (The Spider King) (1461-1483) expanded Royal Power and Promoted Nationalism.
Unification of Spain
Isabella of Castille in 1469 set stage for
Spanish Dyarchy—union of country under
rule of the two monarchs.
• Their descendants would claim both
kingdoms. (Charles I/V [1516-1556])
expense of the old feudal nobility and the
church.
according to raison d’etat. Religion was a
tool of power, not an end to its exercise.
• Balance of power concept emerged.
Humanist challenged the Church
Church officials, yet
believed the thinking
1377 (Papal see in Avignon)
• Great Schism (1378-1415)—Two Popes
• Borgia Popes—such as Alexander VI
(1492-1503)—were worldly and corrupt.
• Humanist critiques found fertile soil.
Great Schism
Martin Luther (1483-1546)—
Case Study • Cried to St. Anthony for deliverance in a fierce
storm and switched from law to theology.
• Became a Seminary professor and used his skills as a philologist—working first with the Psalms and then with the New Testament—to become a great teacher
• Came to question core Catholic doctrines because he couldn’t find support for them in the text.
• 95 THESES—Wittenburg, Oct. 31, 1517.
• Sola scriptura; sola fidei
Bora
• Luther’s Protestant Ideas spread and major
wars were fought from 1529 to 1648
between Catholic and Protestant States in
Central Europe
Schism
throughout Europe
• Calvin’s Doctrine of Election—shaped
England and English Colonies in North
America
• Total depravity
English Reformation
• Began as an attempt by Henry VIII to produce a male heir
• Evolved unevenly between 1534 and 1573 between attempts to return England to Catholicism and purge the Church of England from vestiges of Catholicism.
• Elizabethan settlement created an English church that was Protestant in Doctrine but Catholic in liturgy.
• Satisfied all but English Catholics and Puritans
• Foundations for English Constitutional crisis and Civil War in 17th century.
Henry’s quest for an heir
• Henry VIII married Catherine, Arthur of Brittany’s widow via papal dispensation
• Their daughter Mary, but no sons, survived to adulthood
• Henry lusted after Anne Boleyn and also believed his marriage was cursed by God
• Pope Clement VII’s fear of Catherine’s nephew Charles V kept him from granting divorce
• Henry fired both Thomas, Cardinal Wolsey, and Thomas More as chancellor, because they would not cooperate with Henry
Dynastic Divorce and a New
Divinity
Succession, Treason Act,
Act of Annates
• Pilgrimage of Grace was quashed in 1536
• Monastic lands were plundered—560 by 1539
• Act of the Six Articles (1539)
Henry VIII (1509-1547)
the Reformation in England
Progress of English Reformation • Edward VI (1547-1552) was directed by
Protestant advisors to renounce Henry’s 6 Articles in Favor of a Protestant Church.
• Mary (1552-1558) sought to restore England to Catholicism; she had a few Protestant leaders burned at the stake.
• Elizabeth (1558-1603) treaded lightly on the Religious issue, but punished her political opponents—many of whom were Catholic—and made religion fully a matter of state.
• The Elizabethan Settlement, accomplished in a series of laws by 1573, made England Protestant in Doctrine, Catholic in liturgy.
Catholic Church Responds
1583
abuses
faith
Protestant countries
Religious Wars
• In the German States, Protestant and Catholic Princes fight from 1529 to 1555, until the Peace of Augsburg (cuius regio, eius religio)
• In France, a disputed succession to the throne of France leads to the War of the 3 Henries (1584- 1589), and the Protestant winner of the War, Henry IV, converts to Catholicism to appease the majority of his subjects. “Paris is well worth a mass.”
• 30 Years War animated by religious beliefs
Exploration, Colonization, &
an attempt to spread the true faith.
• With Protestantism emerging, Catholic
lands from falling under the influence of
Protestant error, and vice versa.