European Renaissance and Reformation, 1300-1600
Italy: Birthplace of the Renaissance

During the late Middle Ages, Europe suffered from both war and
plague
 Those who survived wanted to celebrate life and the human spirit
 People began questioning institutions (like the Church) of the Middle
Ages because they did not prevent the wars or relieve suffering
I. Italy’s Advantages
 This movement that started in Italy caused an explosion in creativity
in art, writing, and thought that lasted from 1300-1600 A.D.--the
Renaissance
 Renaissance means “rebirth” and it brought about a revival of art and
learning—new styles of art and literature were created, new values
were adopted (like individual importance)
 Reasons for Renaissance spreading from Northern Italy to the rest of
Europe:
1. Thriving cities
2. Wealthy merchant class
3. Classical heritage of Greece and Rome
a) City-States
 Overseas trade spurred by the Crusades, had led to the growth of
large city-states in northern Italy; rest of Europe rural
 Since cities were often places where ideas were exchanged, this
was the ideal breeding ground for an intellectual revolution
 In the 1300s, the bubonic plague killed up to 60% of the
population
 Because of fewer laborers, people demanded higher wages which
led to higher quality of living
 Merchants could not expand business; pursued other interests
such as art
b) Merchants and the Medici
 A wealthy merchant class developed in each Italian city-state;
started getting involved in politics
 Merchants—believed they deserved power and wealth because
they were successful in their businesses (shows belief in
individual achievement—theme during Renaissance)
 Florence-city-state in N. Italy during the 1200s was a republican
form of government
 This changed during the Renaissance because of the Medici
family—powerful banking family who took control in Florence
 The Medici family influenced the ruling council because he
controlled the money; ruled as dictators behind the scene but kept
the appearance of having an elected government in Florence.
c) Looking to Greece and Rome
 Renaissance scholars wanted to return to the learning of the
Greeks and Romans—looked at the past for inspiration
(architecture, manuscripts, etc.)
 Scholars of Italy drew inspiration from the ruins of Rome, studied
ancient Latin manuscripts from the monasteries, and fled to Rome
with Greek manuscripts when the Turks conquered
Constantinople in 1453.
II. Classical and Worldly Values
d) Classics Lead to Humanism
 Humanism-classical texts lead to this intellectual movement that
focused on human potential and achievements
 Humanists studied to understand Greek values and influenced
artists and architects and got them to carry on classical traditions
 Thus the study of classical education—history, literature and
philosophy (humanities)
e) Worldly Pleasures
 Many people in Western Europe were still devout Catholics, but
life became more secular-more worldly rather than spiritual
 Enjoying the finer things in life without the fear of offending God;
Church starts to change as well
f) Patrons of the Arts
 Church leaders began to beautify Rome by spreading huge
amounts of money for art
 They became patrons, who financially supported artists
g) The Renaissance Man
 Renaissance writers introduced the idea that all educated people
were expected to create art
 In fact, the ideal individual strove to master almost every area of
study; to excel in many fields—The Renaissance Man
 Dance, sing, play music, write poetry, sculpt, etc.
 Upper class women should know the classics and be charming,
educated and have little to do with politics
 Expected to inspire art but rarely to create it
III. The Renaissance Revolutionizes Art
h) Realistic Painting and Sculpture
 The art form perspective began to be used – three dimensions on a
flat surface
 Sculpture and painters started to create works of art that show
people as they are
1. Leonardo de Vinci was a painter, sculpture, inventor, and
a scientist, a true Renaissance Man; his most famous
paintings of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper
2. Michelangelo Buonarroti, the sculptor, poet, architect and
painter used realistic style when depicting the human body;
The Sistine Chapel and his take on “Statue of David”
3. Donatello also made sculptures more realistic by carving
natural postures and expressions that revealed personality;
“Statue of David” and “The Feast of Herod”
4. Raphael Sanzio’s favorite subjects were of the Madonna and
child; famous for his use of perspective.
IV. Renaissance Writers Change Literature
 Many Renaissance writers produced works that reflected their time and
also used techniques that writers use today
 Dante Alighieri wrote in the vernacular, his native language (Italian)
instead of Latin; Father of the Italian language; “The Divine Comedy”
 Renaissance writers wrote for self expression or to portray individuality
of their subjects
 The Italian writer Giovanni Boccachio is best known for the Decameron, a
series of off-color stories
 The stories are told by a group of worldly young people waiting in a rural
villa to avoid the plague sweeping through Florence
 Uses humor is used to illustrate the human condition in all their folly
 The Prince (1513) by Niccolo Machiavelli examines the imperfect conduct
of human beings; acts a political guide book
 Machiavelli examines how a ruler can gain power and keep it in spite of
his enemies
The Northern Renaissance
V. The Northern Renaissance Begins
 The work of such artists as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael
showed the Renaissance spirit; a curiosity about the world, a belief in
human potential
 Humanist writers expanded ideas about individuality
 By the late 1400s, Renaissance ideas had spread to Northern Europe
 By 1450 the population of northern Europe, was beginning to grow again
(plague)
 After the Hundred Years’ War had ended in 1453, many cities grew
rapidly
 As wealth increased in other parts of Northern Europe, patronage of
artists increased as well
 Rulers from England and France often sponsored the arts by purchasing
paintings and by supporting artists and writers
 As a result, the northern Renaissance developed its own character;
artists were especially interested in realism
VI. Artistic Ideas Spread
 In 1494, a French king invaded northern Italy; many Italian artists and
writers left for a safer life in Northern Europe

They brought with them the styles and techniques of the Italian
Renaissance; brought ideas back to their homelands
VII. Northern Writers Try to Reform Society
 Italian humanists were very interested in reviving classical languages and
classical texts
 People used humanist ideas to examine the traditional teachings of the
Church
 The northern humanists were critical of the failure of the Christian
Church to inspire people to live a Christian life
 The focus of Christian humanism was the reform of society; of particular
importance to humanists was education; promoted the education of
women and founded schools attended by both boys and girls
 In 1509, Desiderius Erasmus wrote his most famous work, The Praise of
Folly which poked fun at greedy merchants, heartsick lovers, quarrelsome
scholars, and pompous priests
 Erasmus believed in Christianity of the heart, not one of ceremonies or
rules; all people should study the bible
 Thomas More tried to show a better model of society; 1516 he wrote
Utopia; Utopia is about an imaginary land where greed, corruption, and
war have been weeded out
 More’s book was translated into French, German, English, Spanish, and
Italian
VIII. The Elizabethan Age
 The Renaissance spread to England in the mid-1500s; the period was
known as the Elizabethan Age, after Queen Elizabeth I
 The Queen supported the development of English art and literature
i) William Shakespeare
 Many people regard William Shakespeare as the greatest
playwright of all time
 His works display a masterful command of the English language
and a deep understanding of human beings; he revealed the souls
of men and women through scenes of dramatic conflict
 Many of his plays examine human flaws
 His most famous plays include the tragedies Macbeth, Hamlet,
Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear
IX. Printing Spreads Renaissance Ideas
 During the 13th century, European printers began to use block printing
(from China) to create whole pages to bind into books
 Process was too slow to satisfy the Renaissance demand for knowledge,
information, and books
 Around 1440, Johann Gutenberg, a craftsman Germany, developed a
printing press that incorporated a number of technologies in a new way
 The process made it possible to produce books quickly and cheaply
 Gutenberg printed a complete Bible, the Gutenberg Bible, in about 1455;
books were now cheap enough that many people could buy them
X. The Legacy of the Renaissance
 It was a period of great artistic and social change
 It marked a break with the medieval period ideals focused around the
Church
 The belief in individuality played a key role in the gradual rise of
democratic ideas
 The impact of the moveable-type printing may have been more dramatic
than the arrival of the personal computer
Luther Leads the Reformation

By the 10th century, the Roman Catholic Church had come to dominate
religious life in Northern and Western Europe
 Over the centuries, many people criticized its practices
 People felt that the Church was too interested in worldly pursuits like
wealth and political power
 Even though the Church made reforms during the Middle Ages, the
criticisms continued and would lead to revolt
XI. Causes of the Reformation
 The Renaissance emphasis on the secular and rulers began to openly
challenge the pope’s central authority
 Northern merchants resented paying church taxes to Rome
 A new movement for religious reform rose in Europe
j) Criticisms of the Catholic Church
 Claims that its leadership was corrupt
 The popes during the Renaissance spent extravagantly on
personal pleasure, and fought wars; fathered children
 Pursuing worldly affairs and ignoring spiritual duties
 Many priests and monks were poorly educated and could
barely read let alone teach
 Many broke vows to marry, drink, and gamble
k) Early Calls for Reform
 Higher standards of conduct were expected from priests and
church leaders
 In the late 1300s and early 1400s, John Wycliffe of England and Jan
Hus had advocated Church reform
 Taught that the Bible had more authority than Church leaders did;
pope had no right to worldly power
XII. Luther Challenges the Church
 Martin Luther’s parents wanted him to be a lawyer, he became a monk
and a teacher in the German state of Saxony
 Wanted to be a good Christian, instead led a religious revolution
l) The 95 Theses
 In 1517, Luther took a stand against a friar named Johann Tetzel
 Tetzel was raising money to rebuild St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome;
he did so by selling indulgences, or pardons

It released a sinner from performing the penalty that a priest
imposed for sins
 The impression is that by buying indulgences, one could buy their
way into heaven
 Troubled by this, Martin Luther wrote 95 Theses, or formal
statements
 He posted these statements on the door of the castle church in
Wittenberg; wanted to debate the issue
 Someone copied his words and printed them; his name spread
quickly throughout Germany
 This began the Reformation, a movement for religious reform and
eventual founding of new Christian churches
m) Luther’s Teachings
 Luther wanted to go beyond criticizing the indulgences, he wanted
full reform for the Church; his teachings rested on 3 ideas
1. People could win salvation only by faith in God’s gift of forgiveness
rather than “good works”
2. All Church teachings should be on the Bible; pope and Church
traditions were false authorities
3. All people with faith were equal; people did not need priests to
interpret the Bible for them
XIII. The Response to Luther
 Luther’s ideas spread fast and attracted many followers; people
were unhappy with the Church for many reasons
 In 1520, Pope Leo X threatened Luther with excommunication if
he did not take back his statements
 Luther refused, was excommunicated
n) The Emperor’s Opposition
 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, devout Catholic, opposed Luther’s
teachings; ordered Luther to recant; Luther refused
 Charles V issued an imperial order, the Edict of Worms; it
declared Luther an outlaw and a heretic
 No one was to give him food or shelter; his books burned
 Luther took shelter with Prince Frederick I of Saxony; while there
he translated the New Testament into German
 In 1522, Luther quit seeking reforms, Luther and his followers had
become a separate religious group called Lutherans
 In 1524, German peasants, excited by reformer’s talk of Christian
freedom demanded an end to serfdom
 Horrified by the pillaging and burning of monasteries, Luther
asked the German princes to show no mercy; 100,000 peasants
killed; many peasants rejected Luther’s ideas because of this
o) Germany at War
 In 1529, German princes who remained loyal to the pope agreed to
join forces against Luther’s ideas

Those princes who supported Luther signed a protest against that
agreement; protesting princes became known as Protestants
 Eventually, the term Protestant was applied to Christians who
belonged to non-Catholic churches
 Catholic and Protestant Princes went to war
 In 1555, all German princes Catholic and Protestant met in
Augsburg; Treaty of Augsburg allowed each ruler to decide the
religion of their state
XIV. England Becomes Protestant
p) Henry VIII Wants a Son
 Henry VIII was a devout Catholic; wrote a stinging attack in 1521
of Luther’s ideas
 Henry, fearing a civil war would leave him dead without an heir,
wanted a divorce from his wife Catherine because she left him
with a daughter and could have no more children
 He wanted a younger queen but Church law did not allow divorce
 He wanted it annulled, but had no proof that it wasn’t legal
q) The Reformation Parliament
 1529, asked Parliament to pass a set of laws that ended the pope’s
power in England
 Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn in 1533 and Parliament
legalized Henry’s divorce from Catherine
 1534, Parliament approved the Act of Supremacy which called on
people to recognize the divorce and accepting Henry VIII, as the
official head of England’s Church
r) Consequences of Henry’s Changes
 Anne Boleyn gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, and fell out of
favor with Henry; eventually charged with treason
 Locked in the Tower of London and later beheaded in 1536
 Henry married three more times after this, none gave him a son
 Each of his kids ruled England in turn; Mary, daughter of Catherine
of Aragon, returned the English Church to the pope; had many
Protestants executed
 When Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn’s daughter took
the throne
s) Elizabeth Restores Protestantism
 In 1559, Elizabeth I was determined to return her kingdom to
Protestantism
 Set up the Church of England or Anglican Church, with Elizabeth as
its head
 Hoped that this was a church that moderate Catholics and
moderate Protestants could accept
 To please Protestants, priests in the Church of England were
allowed to marry; To please Catholics, the Church of England kept
some of the trappings of the Catholic service such as rich robes
The Reformation Continues
XV. Calvin Continues the Reformation
 Under the leadership of Queen Elizabeth I, the Anglican Church, though
Protestant, remained similar to the Catholic Church in many of its doctrines
and ceremonies
 Other forms of Protestantism were developing elsewhere in Europe
 In Switzerland, John Calvin and his branch of Protestantism promoted unique
ideas about the relationship between God and people
t) Calvin Formalizes Protestant Ideas
 When Martin Luther posted his 95 theses in 1517, John Calvin was
8 years old
 In 1536 he published Institutes of the Christian Religion which was
a summary of Christian beliefs
 He wrote people were sinful by nature and that only a few would
be saved by God
 Calvin wrote that God already knew who would be saved, this
doctrine was called predestination – the idea that one's life is
already set and can not be changed
 The religion based on Calvin’s teachings was called Calvinism
u) Calvin Leads the Reformation in Switzerland
 In Switzerland, Calvin thought that a perfect government was a
theocracy – a government controlled by religious leaders
 In 1540, Protestants in Geneva, Switzerland asked Calvin to lead
their city; strict rules
 Anyone that broke the rules could be put in jail, banished, or
excommunicated from the church; teaching different doctrine
could also get people burned at the stake
v) Calvinism Spreads
 A Scottish preacher named John Knox visited Geneva and studied
Calvin's model; returned to Scotland and put the ideas to work
 Every community church was governed by a group of laymen
called elders or presbyters
 The followers of Knox became known as Presbyterians; more
lenient rules
 Calvin's followers in France were know as Huguenots
 There was a great deal of hatred between the Huguenots and
Catholics and it frequently led to violence
 August 24, 1572, St. Bartholomew’s Day;
 Catholic mobs began hunting for Protestants and murdering them;
lasted 6 months--12,000 Huguenots were killed
XVI. Other Protestant Reforms
w) The Anabaptists
 Bible is the source of all religious truth and that people should
read it to discover those truths; new Protestant groups formed
over differences in beliefs and interpretation
 One such group was called the Anabaptists – a group that baptized
only those persons old enough to decide to be Christian. Believed
that persons who had been baptized as children should be rebaptized as adults
 Although persecuted by Catholics and Protestants, the Anabaptists
influenced the Mennonites, Amish, Quakers, and Baptists who
would split from the Anglican Church
x) Women’s Role in the Reformation
 Several women were helpful in the reformation
 Some hid reformers that would have been killed, supported the
ideas of there husbands, and took care of the homes while they
were away
 The only thing that really troubled some of the women was that
they were not equal to men in the view of the church; Men limited
women's activities to the home
XVII. The Catholic Reformation
 While Protestant churches won many followers, millions remained true to
Catholicism.
 Helping Catholics to remain loyal was a movement within the Catholic
Church to reform itself—The Catholic Reformation
 Ignatius of Loyola, the son of a powerful man in Spain, was one of the
people that helped with the Catholic Reformation
 Wrote the book, Spiritual Exercises that laid out a day-to-day plan of
meditation, prayer, and study; gathered followers for the next 18 years
 In 1540,the Pope created a new religious order called the Society of Jesus
 The members were called Jesuits – focused on three activities
1. Founded schools throughout Europe (classics and theology)
2. Convert non Christians to Catholicism—send out missionaries
3. Stop the spread of Protestantism
y) Reforming Popes
 Pope Paul III was leader of reforming the Catholic Church from
1534 – 1549
 He had four goals that he wanted to take place
1. Investigate the selling of indulgences and other abuses in
the Church
2. Approval of Jesuit order
3. Use the Inquisition of seek out heresy in Papal territory
4. Call a council of Church leaders to Trent, in Northern Italy
 1545-1563, at the Council of Trent, Catholic bishops and
cardinals agreed on several doctrines:
1. The Church was the final interpretation of the Bible,
anyone else that interpreted the Bible was a heretic
2. Christians need faith and good works for salvation, not
faith alone
3. The Bible and Church tradition were equally powerful
authorities for guiding Christian life
4. Indulgences were valid expression of faith, but the
selling of false indulgences was banned.
 Pope Paul IV vigorously carried out the council’s decrees
 In 1559, he had officials draw up a list of books considered
dangerous to the Catholic faith--Index of Forbidden Books
 Catholic bishops throughout Europe were ordered to gather up
the offensive books (including Protestant bibles) and burn
them in bonfires; 10,000 books burned a day
XVIII. The Legacy of the Reformation
z) Religious and Social Effects of the Reformation
 Ended the Christian unity of Europe and left it culturally divided
 Even though there were wars and persecution, Protestant
churches flourished
 As the Catholic Church’s moral and political authority declined,
individual monarchs and states gained power.
 This led to the development of the modern nation-state
 In the 1600s, rulers of nation-states would seek more power for
themselves and their countries through warfare, exploration, and
expansion.