Chapter 10: Renaissance and Discovery
The Renaissance in Italy (1375-1527)
The nineteenth century historian Jacob Burckhardt in his book, Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,
argued that revival of classical learning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries set a prototype for the modern
world. Renaissance means rebirth and it was no accident then that the Renaissance first took root in Northern
Italy. The Northern Italian City States were the first to develop societies able to break away from decentralized
feudalism and mature into centralized states. Thus their chief focus was to look back for cultural values and
knowledge of Greek and Roman cultural and artistic achievements. This looking back was the heart and soul of
the Renaissance and it created (or found again) that powerful idea of the Greeks, which would challenge the
traditional values of the church: Humanism or the idea that man is the measure of all things. Religion was not
attacked, but its principles no longer dominated.
Almost all historians agree that the Renaissance began in the city state of Florence in central Italy. Why
Florence took leadership in the Renaissance flowering revolves around a variety of factors including the social
and civic peculiarities of Florence at the time; its political structure; and the patronage of its dominant family,
the Medici. It is the death of two Florentines, Francesco Petrarch in 1374 and Giovanni Boccaccio in 1375
that mark the beginning of the Renaissance. We shall study them shortly.
From Florence humanist culture spread throughout Italy and then on into northern Europe. Scholars coined the
term Civic Humanism to describe this coalescence of humanism and civic reform. The Italian Renaissance
would end in 1527 with the sack of Rome (reminiscent of the Visigoths and Vandals). Italy had become the
battleground between France and the Holy Roman Empire and Pope Clement VII (book says VIII but it was
VII) had incurred the wrath of the emperor Charles V by taking the side of the French. Charles had defeated
the French but Charles troops mutinied and marched to Rome. The Book is also wrong because it was
primarily German (Lutheran) troops not Spanish troops that sacked the city. The pope fled for his life by a
secret tunnel (still there) to Castel Sant'Angelo; churches were pillaged; defenders were massacred and even
pro-imperial cardinals had to pay ransom to keep their properties from further looting. The sack was both an
embarrassment to Charles V and the end of the most creative phase of the Italian Renaissance.
The Italian City States
The Renaissance took place within the merchant city states of Northern Italy for a number of reasons
1. Italy was a natural gateway between goods passing from east to west and west to east
2. The city states of Northern Italy had maintained trade with the Middle East throughout the Middle Ages
and so maintained vibrant urban societies
3. As east/west trade increased in the eleventh century, Italian merchants quickly mastered the business of
trade and the necessary skills: bookkeeping, scouting new markets, and securing monopolies wherever
possible.
4. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, trading cities Northern Italian City States dominated
their surrounding countrysides
5. By the fifteenth century, these Northern Italian City States were the bankers to much of Europe
6. During the High Middle Ages the constant warfare between the Guelfs (pro-papal factions) and
Ghibellines (pro-imperial factions) prevented the Northern Italian City States from being dominated or
conquered by the papacy, the French or the Holy Roman Empire.
The five major Northern Italian City States were the Duchy of Milan in the northwest; the Republic of Venice
in the northeast; the Republic of Florence in north-central Italy; the Papal States in central Italy; and the
Kingdom of Naples south of Rome. Two smaller states in the north were also influential: the Republic of
Genoa and the Republic of Siena. Despite their republican names, vicious political competition made most of
them evolve into despotisms just to survive. Only Venice, a merchant oligarchy developed a patrician senate
whose major governing council, known as the Council of Ten, lasted from 1310 to 1797, when French troops
under Napoleon occupied Venice.
Florence, the most important of these cities, also was the best example of the social divisions that caused much
political weakness. Florence had four classes
1. The Grandi, or the old rich, who were the nobles and merchants who ruled the city
2. The Popolo Grosso, or “fat people”, who as the new rich were the emerging merchant class,
capitalists and bankers. They were the chief rivals of the Grandi and wanted more power.
3. The middle-class Burghers came next. They were the guild masters, shop owners, professionals
and smaller business people. They tended to side with the new rich against the old rich.
4. The Popolo Minuto or the “little people” of the lower economic classes
It should also be noted that about a third of the population had no wealth at all.
At any rate, these social divisions led to increasing and bitter rivalry and conflict. In 1378, a great uprising of
the poor, the Ciompi Revolt, rocked Florence. The revolt was a result of the feuding of the old and new rich,
the social upheaval of the Black Death and the collapse of the great banking houses of Bardi and Peruzzi, all of
which made life unbearable for the poorer classes. The result was a four year reign of chaos until one man
brought true stability, the banker and statesman, Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Mèdici.
Còsimo de’ Mèdici (1389 – 1464) was the first of the Medici political dynasty who became the de facto rulers
of Florence during much of the Italian Renaissance; also known as "Cosimo 'the Elder'" ("il Vecchio"). He was
born into a wealthy trading family and inherited his father’s business skills. He was also a skilled diplomat and
accompanied Pope John XXIII to the Council of Constance in 1414. He ruled the city from behind the scenes.
The city was proud of being a republic but Cosimo used his great wealth to buy votes and thus control the
government.
Thus he was able to manipulate the constitution, influence elections and control the Signoria, the city ruling
council. Its members were chosen from the most powerful guilds representing the major clothing industries
(wool, cloth, fur and silk) as well as the bankers, judges and doctors. Cosimo was also a patron of the arts,
liberally spending the family fortune to enrich Florence. After his death the Signoria gave Cosimo the title
Pater Patriae, "Father of his Country", an honor once awarded to Cicero, and had it carved upon his tomb in
the Church of San Lorenzo.
Cosimo de’ Medici was succeeded by his son Piero, father of Lorenzo the Magnificent or Il Magnifico.
Lorenzo (1449 – 1492) ruled Florence as a despot in almost totalitarian fashion but nevertheless he was a
skilled diplomat and politician as well as a patron of scholars, artists and poets. He helped Leonardo da Vinci
and Michelangelo secure commissions from wealthy patrons. He was a poet himself and supported Humanist
scholars studying Greek philosophy, especially Christian Humanists who tried to harmonize the ideas of Plato
with Christianity and maintained that it was possible to be a humanist and lead a virtuous life. Lorenzo’s life
coincided with the high point of the early Italian Renaissance and his death marked the end of the Golden Age
of Florence; and also the fragile peace he helped maintain between the various Italian states.
In Florence the despotism of the Medici’s was subtle but elsewhere the dominant power groups in other city
states hired strongmen or despots, who were called Podestás and their sole purpose was to maintain law and
order. (We will meet similar individuals in Latin American where they are called Caudillos). Podestás were
the chief magistrates of the city with complete executive, military and judicial authority. Their job description
was simple: to keep business in business so that both the old rich and the new rich, the middle class and the
lowers classes, could enjoy continuing prosperity. To enforce their authority, they hired mercenary soldiers
(soldiers hired for pay) led by professional, military men called Condottieri (from the Italian for contractor).
The job of the Podestá was hazardous. They could be dismissed by the oligarchies or factions that hired them
and they were a popular target for assassination. Nevertheless the rewards for success were astounding. In
Milan, it was as Podestá that the Visconti family came to power in 1278 and the Sforza family in 1450, both
ruling without constitutional restraints or serious political competition.
During the Italian Renaissance, the rivalry between the city states and factions within the city states led to The
Art of Diplomacy. Through their diplomats, the city states played an endless “cat and mouse game” with
each other as they learned, bought or stole this military technology or that economic skill or this new economic
system. City states began to open embassies in each others’ states: embassies designed to watch potential
enemies or gain new allies; to gather intelligence for war or peace; and even to prevent destructive wars by
negotiating peace treaties and alliances. Such contacts between the tranquil oligarchy of Venice, the strongarmed democracy of Florence or the outright despots of Milan kept the peace (for the most part), spread and
allowed Renaissance culture to flourish and kept the North Italian City States wealthy.
Humanism
Humanism was an idea inherited from the ancient Greeks that stressed that man (men and women) was the
measure of all things. Humanism caused the birth of the modern world as Burckhardt taught. Humanism was
also championed by Churchmen, called Christian Humanists, who felt that Plato and Aristotle were
compatible with Christianity; and that it was possible to be steeped in the Greeks and Roman classics and still
be a good Christian. Thus – in many forms – Humanism was the scholarly study of the legacy of Greece and
Rome and of the ancient Church Fathers who were part of that legacy. Humanists advocated the Studia
Humanitatis, a liberal arts program of study embracing grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, political science
and moral philosophy. They also celebrated humanity and sought to prepared people for a life of virtuous
action.
It was a Florentine, Leonardo Bruni (d.1415), who first used the name humanitas (the Latin for “humanity”)
and he was a student of Manuel Chrysoloras, a Byzantine scholar who taught at Florence between 1397 and
1403 and opened the world of Greek scholarship to Italian humanists. The first humanists were orators and
poets. They wrote in both classical Latin and their vernacular Italian. They taught rhetoric (the skill of making
an argument) at universities, were the teachers or tutors to princes and prelates, and their talents were sought as
secretaries, speechwriters and diplomats. They were not the first to study the ancients. The Byzantines never
lost the classics and both Charlemagne and the scholastics of the thirteenth century in Paris (like Thomas
Aquinas) also studied what they could of the classics. But these were in distant Constantinople or precedents
what in no way compared to the rebirth of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy. Do not think
Byzantium an exception; for the Byzantines preserved but never built upon classical learning.
Thus the humanists looked less to recent tradition more to a wider and more comprehensive tradition, that
spark of life, of competition, that spirit of the Greeks. It was Petrarch, the Father of Humanism, who first
traveled around Italy and France, avidly searching out Latin and Greek manuscripts. He quit the legal
profession to pursue scholarship and poetry and spent much of his life in and around Avignon. He was also a
politician involved in Roman politics and served the Visconti family in Milan. Petrarch celebrated ancient
Rome in his Letters to the Ancient Dead, which was a collection of imagined personal letters to Cicero, Livy,
Vergil and Horace. He wrote a tribute to Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage, and biographies of
famous Romans. He also tried to reconcile his Renaissance humanism and admiration of the classical world
with his Christian faith in Secretum, an intensely personal, guilt-ridden imaginary dialogue with Augustine of
Hippo. His most intriguing work was Il Canzoniere ("Song Book"), a collect of love sonnets to a certain
Laura, a married whom he admired. It is said that he gave up his vocation as a priest when he first saw Laura.
His poems reveal his deep love for this beautiful and unreachable woman whose early death touched him
profoundly. Petrarch and Dante laid the foundations of Italian vernacular poetry.
Boccacio was a poet and early humanist, who also collected manuscripts and compiled an encyclopedia of
Greek and Roman mythology. His most famous work was the Decameron, a collection allegorical tales, often
bawdy (crude) sketches of love, wit and witticism, practical jokes and worldly (especially of the clergy)
initiation. The setting is a country estate far away from the ravages of the Black Death and it is both a harsh
social commentary about social and economic mores but also a sympathetic look at human behavior. A more
intriguing work was De mulieribus claris (On Famous Women), a collection of biographies of historical and
mythological women from Eve to Cleopatra to Joanna, the contemporary Queen of Naples.
Humanists scoured ancient manuscripts and used them to enlighten their own minds and as an aid to help
society. Their goal was wisdom, eloquently spoken and thoroughly learned (A quote I once learned, to know is
good to understand is better, catches that spirit). Thus, such learning was not meant to be abstract but a useful
part of life. Petrarch said that “It is better to will the good than to know the truth” and by that he meant that he
meant that education ennobled people, that is, made them better. In 1416, a complete manuscript of
Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria (Education of an Orator), was found and it quickly became a guidebook for
the emerging humanist curriculum. An orator is one who speaks before others and uses rhetoric (or the art of
persuasion in public and political settings such as assemblies and courts) to win over people’s opinions. Thus
Quintilian advocated that a good orator must, first and foremost, be a good man. To this end a good orator had
to study philosophy and civic law, had to possess a “loftiness of soul” and never let greed or the desire to win a
lawsuit be more important than truth.
Thus humanism had a profound effect on education. Pietro Vergerio (1349 – 1420), was a humanist,
statesman, and canon lawyer. He taught logic at Padua and Florence, and was tutor to the princes of Carrara at
their court at Padua, until 1505 when Padua was conquered by Venice. After that his career diminished but he
soon became a papal secretary and participant in the Council of Constance. He was the author of the most
influential treatise on education, On the Morals that befit a Free Man, which laid out the principles of liberal
education: …that education…develops those highest gifts of body and mind which ennoble men… (See full
quote in the book).
Vittorino da Feltre (Vittorino Ramboldini) 1378 – 1446, was another Italian humanist and teacher who
(perhaps most of all) epitomized the goal of an educator. He studied at Padua and, after being a tutor to the
children of the Marquis of Mantua, he opened his own boarding school. His methods were revolutionary. He
lived with his students and befriended them. His students studied the great Roman authors and he cared for
their health especially by introducing physical education. His school was, comfortable, well lighted and he
made the curriculum more interesting by taking field trips. So important were his contributions that many of
his contemporary humanists (such as Guarino of Verona who himself helped to streamline the study of the
classics) sent his own children to da Feltre’s boarding school.
But Humanism was not confined to the young or the classroom. Baldassare Castiglione (1478 – 1529) was an
Italian courtier, diplomat, soldier and author who wrote, Book of the Courtier (Il Libro del Cortegiano), which
describes the ideal court and courtier and goes into great detail about the philosophical and cultured and lively
conversations occur in such a setting among such courtiers. (A courtier is a person who is an attendant in the
court of a king or prince.) It was written as a practical manual for the court of Urbino, a small duchy in central
Italy, giving guidance on how to use ancient language and history along with athletic, military and musical
skills, while not ignoring good manners and good character.
Although mentioned previously for her contributions to chivalry, Christine de Pizan (1364–1430), a Venetian,
late-medieval writer, rhetorician, and critic, was also an early humanist who promoted the new education and
culture. She strongly challenged misogyny (hatred for women) in the male-dominated realm of the arts. Her
forty one treatises - most of which defended the contributions of women - established her as Europe’s first
professional woman writer. Her most famous work, based on Boccacio’s On Famous Women, was The
Treasure of the City of Ladies, which was a chronicle of the great women of history. The work is more than a
series of biographies and Pizan questions why women should not be taught as men are, why men think women
should not be educated, the natural inclination of women to learn, and their talent for government.
The Revival of Platonism
The most important of all the recoveries of the Renaissance was that of Greek studies, especially the works of
Plato. Three reasons stand out. First in 1397, Manuel Chrysolorus came to Florence from Constantinople to
promote Greek and Greek studies. Second in 1439, a Church Council held in Florence convened to heal the
Great Schism of 1054. The breach was not healed but the door was opened to for Greek scholars and
manuscripts to come to Florence. Finally in 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, many Greek
scholars fled to Italy and most especially to Florence.
The center of the revival of Platonism was the Florentine Academy, a discussion group in Florence, which
was founded after Plato's thoughts had been introduced to Italy during the Council of Florence. It was
sponsored by Cosimo de' Medici and led by Marsilio Ficino. It is important to understand that the
Florentine Academy was never a formal group but its members considered themselves a modern form of
Plato's Academy. The members were devoted to the study of Plato and the Neoplatonists: Plotinus, Proclus,
Porphyry and Dionysius the Aeropagite. Humanism praised humanity and so humanists were attracted to Plato
because of his favorable view of human nature. For example, Marsilio Ficino re-introduced the term Platonic
Love. For Plato, love (or Eros) carries men to the contemplation of the divine (always searching for the
perfect), that is, that it is the beauty or loveliness of another person which inspires the mind and the soul to the
spiritual.
Another leader of the Florentine Academy, Pico della Mirandola (1463 – 1494), proposed, at the age of
twenty-three, to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy and magic against all comers,
for which he wrote, as an introduction, his famous Oration on the Dignity of Man , which has been called the
Manifesto of the Renaissance. These theses were intended to serve as topics of discussion on what was really
important in life. He stressed the amazing of human achievement; that humans were the only creatures in the
world who had the capacity to be whatever they chose to be: the fly with angels or wallow with the pigs.
Mirandola stressed the importance of the quest for human knowledge and raised this quest to a mystical
vocation.
The humanists were also anxious to discover philological (language) accuracy and historical truth. They
scorned the convoluted writing style of the scholastic theologians and realized that during the previous
millennium the Latin language and the meaning of many Latin texts had been changed (usually miscopied) or
altered (by ignorance or superstition) and so they were determined to use dispassionate and ruthless
scholarship to reveal the truths which medieval tradition and lack of scholarship had blurred.
Lorenzo Valla (1407 –1457) wrote De Elegantiis (Elegances of the Latin Language), a critical examination
of Medieval-Church Latin as opposed to Classical Latin, which caused humanist scholars to purge their
contemporary Latin of Medieval words and style. Using his new knowledge of Classical Latin style, he
shocked the Christian world by proving that a document, The Donation of Constantine, (which gave the pope
jurisdiction in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, and Africa as well as Italy and the entire Western Empire, while
Constantine would retain imperial authority in the Eastern Empire) could not possibly have been written in the
Fourth Century. Valla was a loyal Catholic and did not intend to damage the papacy, but in the next century
Protestant reformers would use his work with devastating effect. However, the bottom line is that Valla had
established the science of Textual Criticism which dedicates itself to finding the original text and meaning of
any given text.
Another conviction of the humanists was Civic Humanism (sometimes called Classical Republicanism),
which drew inspiration from classical writers such as Aristotle and Cicero and was built around concepts such
as civil society, civic virtue and mixed government (i.e., containing elements of democracy, aristocracy, and
monarchy.) Civic Humanism also came from the idea that education should ennoble and thus promote
individual virtue and public service. The ideal remained but many humanists who served in government simply
wanted to exercise power or became a snobbish elite who wrote pure, classical Latin and were recognized for
their academic accomplishments. In reaction, many humanist historians, such as Niccolò Machiavelli (whom
we shall soon meet) wrote in Italian and used their scholarly education for practical politics.
It is important to remember that Classical values encouraged the humanists to reconsider or re-evaluate
medieval ethical teachings. Medieval moral philosophers had taught that the most honorable calling for any
human being was that of monks and nuns who withdrew from the world and dedicated their lives to God in
prayer and contemplation. However, the humanists, who drew inspiration from classical authors like Cicero,
argued that it was possible to lead a morally virtuous life while participating actively in the affairs of the world.
They argued that it was perfectly honorable for Christians to enter into marriage, business relationships and
public affairs and still be good Christians.
Renaissance Art
To the average person of the twenty-first century, art is synonymous with the Renaissance. Secular values
became more and more important as the Renaissance unfolded. Politics, personal lives and the new education
all transformed the Medieval Christian mindset to a more worldly spirit. In the arts, the humanists began to
examine Greek and Roman art and architecture and began to imitate. The process, new to the west, had first
been revived in Byzantium and new ways in the arts accompanied the scholars who fled from conquered
Constantinople. The greatest visual change was that now art was no longer formulaic and abstract but natural
and emotional; religious subject were still the predominate choice, but the figures and scenes were becoming
more and more secular.
Studying classical art, Renaissance artists began to master the ancient techniques in order to achieve grater
realism. Two were of primary importance. The first was Chiaroscuro or the use of shading to achieve a sense
of volume in modeling three-dimensional objects such as the human body. The second was Linear
Perspective or the use of size and diminishing lines to give the view a feeling of size and depth on a flat
surface. The father of Renaissance painting was Giotto (1266 – 1336). He was an admirer of St. Francis of
Assisi and painted a series of frescoes of St. Francis. Though still religious, Giotto broke the flat, formulaic and
abstract barrier with natural depictions of the saint and his life [The Marriage at Cana]. The painter
Masaccio (1401 – 1428) [The Tribute Money] and the sculptor Donatello (1386 – 1466) [his statue of
David] continued the process portraying realistic people in a realistic world. But the three great masters of the
Italian Renaissance were Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the archetype of the Renaissance man. He was a sculptor, architect,
musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer;
but most historians consider him one of greatest painters (if not the greatest) of all time. He spent much time
employed by Francis I of France as a military engineer and his genius foresaw such modern marvels as the
submarine and airplanes. Among his greatest paintings are the Virgin of the Rocks, The Last Supper and the
Mona Lisa. Raphael (1483 – 1520) was a kindly man and painter of great sensitivity who was enormously
productive and ran a large painting workshop despite his early death at the age of thirty seven. Three famous
works are: The Transfiguration, the Wedding of the Virgin and the School of Athens. Michelangelo
Buonarroti (1475 – 1564) was melancholy and moody in contrast to the curious da Vinci and kindly Raphael.
Nevertheless he was a dynamo of creativity and production; he was more interested in creativity than in
creature comforts. He saw himself as a sculptor but worked as a painter and architect as well. His most famous
sculptures are David, the Tomb of Pope Julius II and the Pieta; among his most famous paintings are the
frescos on the ceiling and back wall of the Sistine Chapel; and his crowning achievement was his design of
the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.
Slavery in the Renaissance
Slavery was a given in the Renaissance world as it had been in the Classical and Medieval worlds. The
Vikings, the Mongols and the Muslims all raided coastal towns for slaves to sell in the great slave markets of
Byzantium and Damascus. By 1000 Viking raids had largely ceased as the Viking began to settle down in the
east and west. As far back as the eighth century, the Muslim states had carried on an extensive slave trade
down the east coast of Africa to meet their own needs. Most of Islamic slavery was domestic but many Islamic
slaves were worked unmercifully as manual laborers or for filling the harems of the caliphs. By 1100, with the
Reconquista (reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula) the Spanish sold captured slaves to wealthy Italians and
other buyers. Most slaves of the Renaissance era fell into two classes: domestic servants who often became
members of the family and less humanely treated slaves who worked in gangs on the sugar plantations of
Cyprus and Crete. These latter became a model for the Atlantic Slave Trade In either case, slaves were
property who could be bought or sold, treated well or mistreated at their masters’ pleasure. The Black Death
made slaves more valuable and slavery more profitable. And it is important to remember that, although large
numbers of slaves came from Sub Saharan Africa, color or race was no badge of slavery. Anyone could be a
slave if he or she were unfortunate enough to be captured in a slave raid or in war. By the end of the fourteenth
century, slaves were common in almost every well-to-do household of Renaissance Italy.
Italy’s Political Decline (1494-1527)
The Italian city-states were fiercely independent but also knew how to cooperate in the face of external threats,
especially the Ottoman Turks. The Treaty of Lodi (1454 – 1455) brought together Milan and Naples (long
time enemies) into an alliance with Florence. These three balanced Venice and their ally the Papal States. But
around 1490, the rise of a Milanese despot, Ludovico il Moro, caused hostilities to break out again between
Naples and Milan. In 1494, the Treaty of Lodi expired and Florence joined Alexander VI, the infamous
Borgia pope, in open war with Milan. Ludovico was threatened and made a fatal mistake by asking the French
to come to his aid. The French were only too eager to get involved because they wanted to reconquer Naples
which they had controlled from 1266 to 1442 when they were driven out by Duke Alfonso of Sicily. Ludovico
failed to foresee that the French also had claims to his duchy and the French desire to dominate all of Italy.
The French king, Charles VIII (r. 1483 – 1498) responded quickly. In less than six months he had crossed the
Alps into Italy. In the summer of 1494, as Charles approached Florence, Piero de’ Medici (son of Lorenzo the
Magnificent), tried to appease the French king by handing over the Florentine possession of Pisa. This caused
the citizens of Florence to rise up and exile Piero (known to history as Piero the Unfortunate) and brought to
power a radical Dominican monk, Girolamo Savonarola, who ran Florence until 1498. Savonarola convinced
the Florentines that the French conquest was a long overdue punishment by God because of their immorality.
Charles thus entered Florence and accepted a large ransom to spare the city. After Charles’ departure,
Savonarola ruled Florence as a puritanical and tyrannical autocrat. He confiscated all items associated with
moral laxity: mirrors, cosmetics, lewd pictures, pagan books, immoral sculptures (which he wanted to be
replaced by statues of the saints and modest depictions of biblical scenes), gaming tables, chess pieces, lutes
and other musical instruments, fine dresses, women’s hats, and the works of immoral and ancient poets, and
burnt them all in the town square. But his Puritanism did not last. In 1498, he was accused of heresy and burnt
at the stake for heresy.
Charles went on to invade the Papal States and Naples. This brought about an alliance against him. Led by
Ferdinand of Aragon (the husband of Isabella of Castile who commissioned Christopher Columbus) the
emperor Maximilian along with Venice and the Papal States, an allied force known as the League of Venice to
deal with the French invasion. At Fornovo in July 1495, the League defeated Charles and Charles lost nearly
all the booty of the campaign and had to withdraw to France. Even Ludovico il Moro joined the League of
Venice because he recognized his mistake. Charles tried to rebuild his army but his debts were two great. He
died accidently (while playing tennis) in 1498 and, since his children had predeceased him, he was succeeded
by a cousin, Louis XII (r. 1498-1515).
Louis XII returned to Italy and found a new ally, Pope Alexander VI who was probably the most corrupt pope
in the history of the papacy. Without shame he promoted the careers of his illegitimate children, Cesare and
Lucrezia Borgia, and he made the papacy a tool for his family’s political ambitions in Romagna in Northern
Italy. Many principalities in Romagna had freed themselves from papal domination with the aid of Venice.
Alexander VI wanted a French alliance to recapture the lost principalities. So to secure French favor, he
annulled Louis XII’s marriage to Charles VIII’s sister so Louis could marry Charles’ widow, Ann of Brittany,
a political move to keep Brittany French. Alexander also granted a cardinal’s hat to Louis’ favorite bishop and
agreed to abandon the League of Venice, which would make the league to weak to resist France. In exchange
Cesare married Charlotte of Albert, sister of the king of Navarre, which increased Borgia military strength.
Cesare also received land from Louis XII with the promise of French military aid.
All this was a shocking mockery of morality by both Alexander and Louis but it did allow the French king to
conquer Milan in 1499 and imprison Luiovico il Moro (who died in a French prison). In 1500, Louis and
Ferdinand of Aragon divided Naples between them and Alexander and Cesare established firm papal control in
Romagna. Cesare was rewarded with the title “Duke of Romagna.” In 1503, Alexander VI died and, after the
short one month papacy of Pius III, he was succeeded by the warrior pope, Guilano della Rovere, who took
the name Julius II, and who was not just a secular warrior but a patron of the arts. It was he who
commissioned Raphael to paint the School of Athens in the Vatican Palace and Michelangelo the ceiling of
the Sistine Chapel.
Julius II took the papacy to the peak of its secular and military authority; he suppressed the Borgia family and
was the master of diplomacy and intrigue. So secular and political was he that the Christian humanist scholar,
Erasmus (1466-1536) wrote an anonymous satire, Julius excluded from Heaven, a comical description of
Julius, after his death, trying to convince St. Peter that he ought to be admitted. Julius drove the Venetians out
of Romagna in 1509 and brought Romagna fully under papal control. He then determined to drive the French
out of Italy. In 1511, Julius, Venice and Ferdinand of Aragon formed an alliance and, joined by the Holy
Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Henry VIII of England, routed the French and drove them back across the
Alps. The Swiss won the final victory at 1513 at The Battle of Novara in Piedmont.
Louis XII of France died on New Year’s Day, 1515 and was succeeded by his nephew (and son-in-law),
Francis I who ruled France until 1547. Francis lost no time in invading Italy once again. In 1515 at the Battle
of Marignano, the victorious Francis massacred the Swiss losers in revenge form Novara. The pope was then
forced to sign the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, which gave the French king control over the French clergy
in exchange for Francis’ recognition of the pope’s superiority over church councils and the pope’s right to
collect the Annates in France. It is important to understand that the Concordat of Bologna not only helped keep
the French monarchy loyal to the papacy during the Protestant Reformation but also set the framework for the
four Hapsburg-Valois Wars in Italy, all of which France lost.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was a Florentine historian, philosopher, humanist, diplomat, civil servant
and writer, who is perhaps the most well-known of the founders of modern political science. The papal wars
and the subsequent French and German invasions of Italy convinced him that Italian political unity could only
be achieved by brutal and pragmatic means. Thus he developed the maxim for which he is known: The End
Justifies the Means. As a humanist scholar, Machiavelli was impressed by the Virtus (strength or manly
courage) he believed the ancient Romans possessed, and believed that only by displaying such courageous
strength could greatness ever be achieved.
Machiavelli’s best-known book, The Prince, is filled with advice on raw politics, not so much for the more
traditional hereditary ruler, but more for new the rulers or princes (like the Medici whom he served) to rise to
and retain power. He pointed out that the hereditary prince had to carefully maintain the socio-political
institutions with which the people are accustomed; whereas a new prince had a more difficult task, since he had
to first stabilize his new-found power to build a secure political foundation. That required that the new prince
be concerned not only with his reputation and social mores but also the necessity to act immorally when the
occasion demanded. Thus, Machiavelli emphasized the occasional need for the methodical exercise of brute
force, deceit, tyranny and so on.
Some scholars see The Prince as a satire but most feel that he was sincere. After all, he dedicated it to Lorenzo
de’ Medici, the grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The Church condemned The Prince as unethical and
contrary to Christian morality, as did most humanist scholars, especially Erasmus. Moreover, The Prince is
also stands in strong contrast to Platonic and Aristotelian thought in that Machiavelli insisted that an imaginary
ideal society is not the model for a prince to orient himself by. And it is interesting the a Medici pope, Clement
VII, watched helplessly in 1527 when Charles V overran Rome and the year that Machiavelli died.
The Growth of Monarchy in Northern Europe
1450 is a watershed year in European History because it marks the point when strong unified monarchies
began to grow dramatically in northern Europe. Feudalism and Feudal society did not altogether die, but the
tide had turned and the new monarchs gained increasing control in France, Spain and England. The Feudal
model was that the powers of government were divided between the king and semi-autonomous vassals. The
nobility and the towns acted with varying degrees of unity to limit the power of the kings; hence the
development of the English Parliament, the Spanish Cortes and the French Estates General. After the
Hundred Years’ War and the Great Schism of the West, the nobility and clergy were in decline and less able to
thwart the royal ambitions of the new monarchs. Their place was filled by the increasingly influential
townspeople who began to make common cause with the monarchs.
It was the townspeople, that is, the merchants and rising Middle Class, who more and more staffed the royal
bureaucracies and assisted the king as lawyers, bookkeepers, military personnel and diplomats; and it was this
alliance that broke Feudalism and led to the rise of the modern nation building. In these nation states, the
powers of taxation, war and law enforcement were transferred from Feudalized vassals to the monarch and his
government. Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain rarely called the Cortes into session; the Estates General met even
less frequently; only in England was Parliament more assertive. Nevertheless, the Tudor monarchs, Henry VII,
Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, all knew how to finesse Parliament for the revenues they needed. Echoing
Defensor Pacis (Defender of the Peace) of Marsilius of Padua, who stressed the independent origin and
autonomy of secular governments, Jean Bodin (1530-1596) wrote a 1576 treatise, The Six Lives of the
Republic, in which he defended the sovereign right of the monarch in his famous quotation that The Sovereign
Prince is accountable only to God.
The monarchs used their appointed civil servants whose vision was national and whose loyalty was to the
monarch to spread the monarch’s authority throughout the land. In Castile, they were called Corregidores; in
England they were called Justices of the Peace; and in France Bailiffs. The goal was to create an
administrative bureaucracy, which was uniformly trained in the classical model. Monarchs also began to create
standing armies and replace the Feudalized knights on horseback. With the advent of gunpowder weapons,
cavalry did not disappear, but infantry and artillery became the backbone of the royal armies. Often kings hired
mercenaries (soldiers for hire), most often from Switzerland and Germany. These professional soldiers fought
for pay and were more loyal than vassals, unless the money ran out. Warfare (not to mention bureaucracies)
became more expensive with the new technologies, so kings needed new sources of revenue.
The most effective means of increasing revenue was taxation. The French kings taxed sales, hearths, salt (the
Gabelle) and the peasants themselves (the Taille); the English taxed hearths, individuals and plow teams; the
Spanish used a 10% sales tax called the Alcabala. One major difficulty was the nobility’s complete refusal to
be taxed. By custom they were immune from taxes but they refused to even consider the smallest of taxes on
themselves. They claimed such taxes would be an insult and humiliation. To raise money rulers also sold
public offices, issued government bonds and borrowed from either the rich nobility or the great banking houses
such as those of Northern Italy.
France: Charles VII (r. 1422-1461) was made a great king by those who served him. A professional army
was created, inspired by Joan of Arc. Jacques Cœur built the king a strong economy, diplomatic corps, and
loyal bureaucracy. France built in sense of nation in the fifteenth century on two bases: the collapse of the
English empire in France as a result of the Hundred Years’ War; and the defeat of Charles the Bold (r. 14671477) of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy in 1477. Burgundy, basically French, was independent and a
creature of both the Holy Roman Empire and France. (Remember the Burgundian part of the French army just
stood by as their fellow Frenchmen were slaughtered by the English at Agincourt in 1415.) Charles the Bold
and his predecessors had wanted to be the French monarchs, but that dream died at Nancy, after which Louis
XI of France and HRE Maximilian I divided Burgundy between them. France emerged from Nancy strong and
united. Unfortunately, Louis’ successors tried to grow France by invasions of Italy and power struggles with
the Hapsburgs so that by the mid sixteenth century France was again a disorganized and defeated nation.
Spain: the culmination of state building in Spain was achieved by the marriage in 1469 of Ferdinand of
Aragon and Isabella of Castile, which united the two wealthiest and most important Iberian kingdoms. Under
their dual monarchy, they collected taxes from sales to support a powerful standing army and build an efficient
bureaucracy. They won the allegiance of the Hermandad, a powerful league of cities and towns that helped
them break down the last vestiges of Feudalism. Their grandson, Charles V, would not only become Holy
Roman Emperor but the first king of a truly united Spain. They were called the Catholic kings because they
not only completed the Reconquista in 1492 (absorbing the Moorish kingdom of Granada), but also (under
Cardinal de Cisneros) expelled the surviving Moors in 1502. As the sixteenth century dawned, Ferdinand
controlled Naples and Sicily. They (mostly Isabella) also sought Asian commercial markets and financed
Christopher Columbus to find a western route to China. This resulted in a huge Spanish empire in the
Americas that would soon pour tons of gold and silver into the Spanish economy.
England: England’s defeat in the Hundred Years’ War (1453) left England with only port of Calais but her
defeat would soon be followed by a more difficult thirty year period of internecine warfare at home that has
come to be called the War of the Roses. The roots of the conflict began with the removal of Richard II in
1399 and the rivalry of two families, the House of York whose symbol was a white rose and the House of
Lancaster whose symbol was a red rose. Backed by wealthy towns in southern England, the House of York,
headed by the Duke of York, challenged the monarchy of the Lancastrian king Henry VI (r. 1422-1461). In
1461, the son of the Duke of York, seized the throne and became Edward IV (r. 1461-1483). Although his
rule was heavy handed rule and lasted more than twenty years (except for a short period between 1470-1471
during which Henry was briefly restored), Edward did much to build to effectiveness of the monarchy.
Edward died in 1483 and his brother, Richard III, usurped the throne from Edward’s son, Edward V.
Richard’s reign was troubled and the later Tudors accused him of murdering Edward’s sons in the Tower of
London. At any rate, steady support grew for the exiled Henry Tudor who returned to England from exile and
defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field in August of 1485. Henry Tudor then ruled as Henry VII (r.
1485-1509), the founder of the Tudor Dynasty that would rule England until 1603. Henry was the last English
king to win his throne on the battlefield; nevertheless, in order to bring dynastic peace Henry married
Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV.
To stabilize the monarchy Henry brought the English nobility to obedience by a unique institution known as
Star Chamber. Star Chamber was a king’s court which had the sanction of Parliament and whose function
was prevent the nobility from exercising intimidation and violence to win court cases. Star Chamber was
staffed with the king’s judges who were not intimidated by the nobility and ushered in a more stable and
equitable court system. And, as already pointed out, Henry appointed Justices of the Peace on a large,
nationwide scale. They were appointed for every shire and served for a year at a time. Their chief task was to
see that the laws of the country were obeyed in their area.
Henry was also able to raise money by using Star Chamber Court to confiscate the lands and monies of so
many nobles that he was able to run his government without having to ask Parliament for money. In so doing
and by the exercise of Machiavellian diplomacy Henry finessed Parliament to get what he wanted and laid the
foundations upon which his son Henry VIII and granddaughter Elizabeth I would build.
The Holy Roman Empire: Germany and Italy stood in stark contrast to England, France and Spain in the
process of state building. Over the course of the empire’s history, territorial rulers and cities alike resisted
every effort at imperial unification. Even Charlemagne (more than 600 years previously) had ruled mostly by
persuasion and by 1450 Germany was hopelessly divided into about three hundred autonomous (self-ruling)
political entities. Nevertheless territorial princes and the cities did work together to create the mechanisms of
law and order. The emperor Charles IV (r. 1346-1378) reached an agreement with the major territorial rulers
and cities in a 1356 agreement called the Golden Bull, which established a seven member electoral college
consisting of the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne; the duke of Saxony; the margrave of Brandenburg;
the count Palatine; and the king of Bohemia. This college functioned as an administrative body which elected
the emperor and then worked with him to provide transregional unity and administration.
The emperor was both figurehead and ruler and every newly elected emperor renegotiated division of powers
between the electors and himself with every election. Thus the rights of the princes were always balanced in
regard to that of the emperor. In the fifteenth century, an imperial diet (or formal deliberative assembly) called
the Reichstag was created in an attempt to control feuding between the local princes. The Reichstag consisted
of the seven electors, the non-electoral princes, and representatives from the sixty-five imperial free cities. The
cities were the weakest members of the assembly. Nevertheless in 1495, at a meeting of the Reichstag in
Worms, its members convinced Maximilian I to enforce a ban on private warfare and to create both a Supreme
Court of Justice (to enforce internal peace) and a Council of Regency (to coordinate imperial and internal
policies). These reforms were a step forward but, compared to France, England and Spain, were a pitifully
weak step toward true unity.
The Northern Renaissance
After 1527 and the sack of Rome, Italy began to decline as the center of the Renaissance - mostly because
French and Spanish kings had occupied much of Italy and new, expanding Atlantic trade routes were
beginning steer much trade (and many $$$) away from the Italian City States. After 1450, Northern Europe
caught the spirit of humanism with its emphasis on Greek and Roman literature, culture and art. But the
Northern Renaissance was more conservative. Northern painters, for example, were less daring in depicting the
human form and generally more serious about religion, often depicting scenes from hell and purgatory. Yet
slowly (and sometimes painfully) humanist ideas merged with religious values. The Brothers of the Common
Life, for example, was an influential lay religious movement that began in the Netherlands that permitted men
and women to live a shared religious life without making the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and
obedience. Thus Northern Humanists developed a culture quite distinctive from Italian Renaissance.
Printing Press: Literacy also contributed to growth of the Northern Renaissance. In 1468, Johannes
Gutenberg, a German metalworker and inventor, combined metal-movable type and oil based inks to create
the modern printing press and produced rapid printing of written materials. The result was that books became
common place and affordable. It also meant that literacy rates began to climb and new ideas began to spread:
humanistic, secular and personal. It is important to understand that without people who could think critically,
the spread of Renaissance thought would have been at best stunted. Some of the most popular publications
stemming from the invention of the printing press, after Bibles printed in the vernacular and religious works,
were almanacs discussing subject from childrearing, farming, weather forecasting and the making of liquors.
Finally increased literacy boosted self esteem and encouraged education; ushered in an era of pamphleteering,
and weakened both the Church’s and states’ control of people’s thoughts and values.
Erasmus: The most illustrious of the Northern humanists was a theologian and priest, Desiderius Erasmus
(1466-1536). He was a classical scholar who wrote in a pure Latin style and enjoyed the sobriquet (nickname),
Prince of the Humanists. Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared critical new Latin and
Greek editions of the New Testament. He was a life-long, loyal Catholic who wanted major reforms in the
Church. He was also a teacher who often earned his living by tutoring the children of the wealthy. He authored
short Latin dialogues, the Colloquies, which were intended to teach his students how to speak and live well. In
them he also wrote anticlerical dialogues and satires on religious dogmatism. Erasmus also collected and
published ancient and contemporary proverbs, which were called the Adages. Some of Erasmus’ most famous
Adages are still common today, such as Leave no stone unturned and Where there is smoke, there is fire.
In 1509, Erasmus wrote his most famous work, The Praise of Folly, which was a satirical examination of
pious but superstitious abuses of Catholic doctrine and corrupt practices in both the Curia and among the
clergy before ending with a clear and powerful exposition of Christian Ideals. It is filled with classical
allusions delivered in a style typical of the learned humanists. Folly parades as a goddess, offspring of Pluto,
the god of underworld and a nymph, Freshness. She was nursed by two other nymphs Inebriation and
Ignorance, her faithful companions include Philautia (self-love), Kolakia (flattery), Lethe (oblivion),
Misoponia (laziness), Hedone (pleasure), Anoia (madness), Tryphe (wantonness) and two gods Komos
(intemperance) and Eegretos Hypnos (dead sleep). Folly praises herself endlessly, arguing that life would be
dull and distasteful without her. In was published 1511 and dedicated to his friend Sir Thomas Moore.
Erasmus was a true idealist and his goal was to inspire the union of the classical ideals of humanism and civic
virtue with the Christian ideals of love and piety. He summarized his own belief in the phrase Philosophia
Christi, a simple, ethical piety in imitation of Christ. What offended him most was that both the Catholics and
the Protestants were rooted in their own dogmas and, in their competition for the hearts and souls of Christians,
had forgotten simple and sincere Christian piety. Nevertheless, both Catholics and Protestants criticized and
praised Erasmus’ works and philosophy. At one point, all Erasmus’ works were on the Roman Church’s Index
of Forbidden Books and Erasmus and Luther had (after initial sympathy with each other) a falling out over the
freedom of human will. But as we shall study in the next chapter, the popular and ironic (supposedly hatched
with bitterness by Catholic Counter Reformation) maxim that Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched was
correct.
In Germany the father of German was Rudolf Agricola (1443-1485) who spent ten years in Italy before he
returned to Germany to introduce the new learning. Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523) was a knight and a
humanist who gave German humanism both a nationalist sentiment and a hostility to non-German culture,
especially Italian culture. He admired Luther and Erasmus; and published an edition of Valla’s exposé of the
Donation of Constantine. Von Hutten would later be killed in a knights rebellion against German princes.
What brought von Hutten to notoriety was his support of Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) who was Europe’s
foremost authority on Hebrew and Jewish studies and who wrote the first reliable Hebrew grammar. However
a converted Jew named Pfefferkorn led a movement to suppress Jewish writings and attacked Reuchlin for his
work as being unchristian. Von Hutten was at the forefront of German humanists who can to Reuchlin’s
defense. When Martin Luther was attacked in 1515 for his famous Ninety-five Theses and it attack on the
sale of indulgences, most of the same German humanists also rushed to his defense.
In England, William Grocyn (d. 1519) and Thomas Linacre (d.1524) first introduced humanism in their
lectures at Oxford University; Erasmus later lectured at Cambridge and John Colet (1467-1519), dean of St.
Paul’s Cathedral, was a great patron of humanist studies, especially for the promotion of religious reform. But
the most famous of the English humanists was Thomas More (1478-1535) whose best known work was
Utopia, which depicted an imaginary society that had overcome all social and political injustice by holding all
property and goods in common and requiring every person to earn their own living. More became a trusted
counselor of Henry VIII but fell from favor and was executed because he would not support the Act of
Supremacy which made Henry head of the Church in England and Henry’s putting away of his queen,
Catherine of Aragon, and marrying Anne Boleyn. Like Erasmus, More died a Catholic but still helped lay the
framework for the English Reformation.
The French humanist leaders, who encouraged both educational and religious reform, were the Greek scholar,
Guillaume Budé (1468-1540), and the biblical scholar Jacques Lefévre d’Etaples (1454-1536). Lefévre
especially exemplified the new scholarship and greatly influenced Luther. John Calvin was a product of the
intellectual circle of Guillaume Briconnet (1470-1533), who cultivated a generation of reform minded young
humanists.
Spanish humanism was thoroughly sublimated to the Catholic Kings and the Roman Catholic Church. The key
figure was Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros (1437-1517), who a confessor to Queen Isabella and after 1508 the
Grand Inquisitor, a position which he used to enforce the strictest Roman Catholic orthodoxy upon Spain and
its people. He founded the University of Alcalá near Madrid in 1509 and used the new learning to reform and
to reinforce the Roman Catholic practice of religion. His greatest literary achievement was the Complutensian
Polyglot Bible, a six volume work that placed Latin, Greek and Hebrew texts in parallel columns.
The Voyages of Discovery and Empires in the New World
Columbus’s discovery of what he thought was part of Asia profoundly impacted the European world. But he
was not the first to search for Asia and the lucrative trading opportunities that followed. It is the Portuguese
who began the great voyages of exploration but not for adventure because they wanted to reap the profits of
trade and to expand the boundaries of Roman Catholic Christianity.
During the fifteenth century, Prince Henry of Portugal (sometimes called Henry the Navigator), started his
country on this twin goal of evangelism and profit. In 1415, his forces seized the Moroccan city of Ceuta,
which guarded the Strait of Gibraltar, and regarded its capture as a victory over Islam. Next, he pushed
Portuguese mariners out into the Atlantic where they discovered and colonized Madeira and the Azores. Then
he pushed his forces to sail down the African coast where they discovered many other islands such as the Cape
Verde, Fernando Po and Sao Tome, which they colonized and began to use to cultivate sugarcane. Northern
Italian bankers – anxious to find sugar supplies outside the Muslim world and make profitable investments eagerly supplied money to support an industry which would supply Europeans with this sweet tasting
substance.
The Portuguese did not hesitate (their Christian principles not withstanding) to trade guns, textiles and
manufactured goods for gold and slaves. They built forts along the African coast and transported slaves to their
Atlantic plantations as well as for domestic work as servants in Europe. The use of slaves for this heavy labor
(which was often unspeakably brutal) on these sugar plantations grew more popular because sugar was
profitable and so soon these plantations created a huge businesses and profits. However, Prince Henry’s
ultimate goal was still to bypass the Islamic nations and establish direct commercial links to Asia.
The great explorers we shall note are:
1.
Bartholomew Dias left Lisbon in August 1487 with a fleet consisting of three ships. He sailed down the
coast of Africa to the Congo River and in 1488 became the first European to sail around Cape of Good
Hope and enter the Indian Ocean as far as the Great Fish River. Dias would later sail with Vasco da
Gama and Pero Alvarez Cabral (1500) in subordinate positions. Ironically he died in a shipwreck off
the Cape of Good Hope later in 1500.
2.
Vasco da Gama (in 1497) rounded the Cape of Good Hope, but sailed across the Indian Ocean all the
way to Calicut. He returned to Lisbon the next year with a hugely profitable cargo of pepper and spices.
Da Gama succinctly stated the Portuguese twin goal of profit and domination when, having arrived at
Calicut, the local authorities asked him what he wanted. His reply was, "Christians and spices."
3.
Christopher Columbus was arguably the most famous explorer in world history. He was a Genoese
sailor named Christopher Columbus who hit upon the idea of sailing west to connect with China and
India. He tried to get the backing of the Portuguese, but they were satisfied with the work of
Bartholomew Dias and refused to back him. Therefore, he went to Spain, Isabella persuaded Ferdinand
and the rest is history. In 1492, his fleet of three (Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria) ships departed Palos in
Southern Spain. He picked up supplies at the Canary Islands and almost three months later found an
island in the Bahamas, which he called San Salvador. He then sailed northwest and discovered Cuba
before sailing home via Lisbon. He made three trips to the new world and told the king and queen he
had found Asia. Columbus died in 1506 and never knew that he had not found a direct route to Asia,
but rather a new world.
The Importance of Columbus’ work was almost immediately recognized in Europe and hundreds of
Spanish, English, Dutch and French mariners soon followed. At first, they still looked for a direct route
to Asia, but slowly it became clear that a new world had been discovered. Thus, Columbus’ voyages
began the establishment of links between Europe and the Americas. Exploration and colonization
would follow very quickly.
The Conquest of Mexico and Peru
The Spanish soon moved from the Caribbean to the mainland, where they hoped to find more resources to
exploit. During the 16th century, Spanish Conquistadores (conquerors) moved into Mexico, Panama and Peru.
Theirs was a freelance operation and laid the foundation for the Spanish empire in the Americas.
In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed 450 men in Veracruz and traveled overland to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital
on the island in Lake Texcoco. They seized the Aztec Emperor, Montecuzoma II, but were soon driven from
the island by the Aztecs. Cortes then built a small fleet and besieged the city until he starved it into surrender in
1521. However, the question begs to be asked: how could 450 Spanish soldiers conquer twenty-one million
Aztecs? There were four good reasons:
1.
Cortes had superior technology (swords, muskets, canons and horses).
2.
He had superior intelligence (remember the story of Dona Marina, the Aztec woman who worked as a
translator for Cortes and is credited with providing the Spanish conquistadores with much of the intelligence
and diplomatic information they needed to defeat of the Aztecs.
3.
Because of resentment on the part of subject peoples, Cortes was able to make alliance with them,
which provided his Spanish soldiers with thousands more soldiers.
4.
During the siege, smallpox broke out and killed thousands of Aztecs: so many Aztecs died that not only
was their military strength compromised, but also Aztec society ceased to function.
A similar story is told in Peru. Francisco Pizarro invaded Peru with a small band of Spanish soldiers in 1530.
He too had superior technology and was – like Cortes - helped by resentful subject people and smallpox.
Moreover, he had the unexpected good fortune to arrive in Peru at a moment when there was severe Incan
infighting over leadership. Pizarro, a master of treachery, came to Cuzco and, under the pretext of a conference
invited all the Incan leaders together, seized them and killed most of them. He spared the Emperor, Atahualpa,
and held him for ransom. When the gold was paid, he baptized him a Christian, garroted him and had his head
removed. Pizarro was soon master of Incan Peru. In fact, the greatest threat to his new conquest was other
Spanish freelance forces.
By 1540, the Conquistadores had absorbed other Native American states like the Maya in the Yucatan and
made themselves masters of a large portion of the Americas from Mexico to Peru. But the day of the
Conquistadores was short lived. Gradually the Spanish Crown expanded their own power in the Americas so
that by 1570 all Spanish-held America had come under the control of the Spanish crown.
It is important to understand that the in building their empire, the Spanish operated in the same way as they had
in the Reconquista. Just as they had militantly imposed their religion and culture upon the conquered Muslims,
so in like manner the Spanish imposed their religion and culture on the conquered native peoples. As the
Spanish colonies grew in the 16th century, two principal centers of authority arose: Mexico and Peru. The king
appointed administrators called Viceroys (meaning, in place of the king) who were responsible to the king and
made policy in the king’s name. This Viceroy system eventually expanded into four areas: New Spain (Mexico
and Central America), New Granada (Panama, Colombia and Venezuela), New Castile (Peru, Ecuador and
Northern Chile) and Rio de la Plata (Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and much of modern Argentina).
The Spanish were thorough hunters of gold and silver. When they overthrew the Aztec and Incan states, they
simply melted down all gold (including art works) into ingots to be sent to Spain. When that was exhausted,
mining for precious minerals began in earnest. Gold was highly prized but silver was much more plentiful.
Silver production was concentrated at two major sites: in Mexico, especially around the region of Zacatecas
and the fabulously wealthy mines at Potosi in Peru, high in the Andes Mountains.
Farming and Slavery in the Iberian Empires
Apart from mining the principal occupations in Spanish America were farming, stock raising and craft
production. By the 17th century the prominent site of agricultural and craft production was the hacienda, which
was self sufficient but also designed to produce cash crops to sell in nearby towns and cities.
The Portuguese did not have the mineral or agricultural opportunities the Spanish enjoyed with one big
exception. Brazil was favorable to the production of sugar cane on plantations called Engenhos, which
combined agriculture and industry. Instead of using indigenous peoples as laborers (whom they considered
unsuited for agriculture and who had been decimated by European diseases), the Portuguese imported African
slaves. The conditions on these Engenhos were too terrible to describe. Slaves were treated worse than cattle
with no families or prospects for happiness. Life expectancy was short, but slaves were cheap and plentiful.
The bottom line was that profit was the only goal of the owners. It was said that every ton of sugar, cost one
human life. But a permanent, unintended result was that African slaves and their descendents became the
majority population in Brazil to this day.
Slowly the brutal Encomienda system was replaced by the Repartimento system. The repartimento system still
compelled Native Americans to supply workers, but made a more sincere attempt to provide protection by
limiting working hours and requiring fair wages. Predictably, both systems resulted in produced low
productivity and worker unrest. The workers fought back as best they could: sometimes rebellion, half hearted
work and sometimes flight into mountains or jungles. In 1680, a shaman named Popé led a huge uprising in
Northern Mexico called the Pueblo Revolt. An even larger rebellion occurred a century later in 1780 in Peru
where over sixty thousand Inca tried to throw off Spanish tyranny and restore the last bloodline Incan ruler
Tupac Amaru. Both rebellions were viciously put down and thousands were executed (code for massacred)
including the beheading of Tupac Amaru.
Some Encomenderos, however, learned the lesson that a happy work force is a more productive work force and
by the mid 17th century both systems were on the decline and were beginning to be replaced by a market
system – still unfair - but in which laborers more freely competed for wages. Indigenous peoples also began to
turn to the law courts for redress (appeal) and sometimes it worked.
Sometimes the indigenous peoples found advocates (usually but not always) in the lower clergy of the Roman
Catholic Church; these good men would seek legal redress against the harshness of Spanish and Portuguese
colonists. In 1615, Guaman Poma, for example, a native Peruvian authored a letter to King Philip III of Spain
that has survived and serves as a record of the Indians' grievances against the Spanish colonists and the greedy
clergy. His letter was lost for a long time and never read by the king but it eloquently complained about
oppressive taxation, women driven to prostitution, and corrupt clergy