| Socyberty > History |
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The Northern Renaissance |
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by Dan Roberts, Mar 4, 2008 |
How the Renaissance first brought change to Europe. |
- The Northern Renaissance begins
- The bubonic plague and the Hundred Years' War end at the same time (1450)
- Urban populations increased, ruled by monarchs
- Rulers of the new nation-states fund a great deal the Northern Renaissance
- Renaissance ideas spread northward due to the French kings attempt to take over Naples
- Education is the key to the Northern Renaissance
- New universities are built in Spain, France, Britain, Scandinavia, and Germany
- Between 1386-1506 fourteen universities were established in Germany
- Most important was Wittenberg, founded in 1502
- No new universities are established in Italy in the 15th century
- The printing of books spreads Renaissance ideas
- Europeans barrowed the idea of movable type from the Chinese
- Johann Gutenberg printed the first full book; the Bible (1455)
- Books become cheaper and easier to access; literacy rates increase
- Many books were written in the vernacular allowing more people to read
- Northern writers try to reform society
- Northern Renaissance thinkers merged humanist ideas with Christianity
- Focus was on early Christianity and thinkers
- Examples: Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome
- Felt that the “simple religion” advocated by these thinkers was distorted by complicated theological arguments in the Middle Ages
- Major goal was to reform society
- Felt that the main way to improve society was through education
- This is one reason why Erasmus created his own translation of the Bible
- Christian humanists
- Erasmus; Handbook of the Christian Knight (1503); The Praise of Folly (1511)
- Thought religion was the “philosophy of Christ”
- Christianity should be a guiding philosophy and not a set of dogmatic beliefs
- Emphasized inner piety as opposed to external exercises of religion
- Praise of Folly is a common sense criticism of the Church
- He was especially hard on abuses by clergy
- He did not attack the existence of the institution, simply the abuses which existed
- “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched”
- Erasmus eventually disapproved of Luther and the Protestant reformers
- He did not want to destroy the unity of the medieval Christian church, simply to reform the institution
- Sir Thomas More; Utopia (1516)
- Formally trained in law, took a great interest in Greek and Roman culture
- Became Lord Chancellor of England
- Utopia presented a new social system where cooperation and reason replaced power and fame as the leading agents in society
- Communal ownership
- All person work a 9 hour day
- People are rewarded based on their needs
- More was executed for opposing Henry VIII break with the Catholic church
- The Elizabethan Age
- Named after Queen Elizabeth
- Highly educated queen who supported many writers and the arts
- William Shakespeare is the most important literary figure of the age
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