Renaissance And Reformation - Ms. Anderson's Classes!

RENAISSANCE ANDREFORMATION, PT1S. AndersonWorld History

The Waning of the Middle Ages Starting in the 12th Century, life in Europebegan to change. The Crusades brought newgoods from the East to Europe, stimulating arebirth of trade. They also weakened theByzantine Empire, contributing to its latercollapse.

The Waning of the Middle Ages, cont’d New trade led to the growth of towns, thedevelopment of a middle class, and the greateruse of money. Instead of performing servicesfor their feudal lord, many people began usingmoney to pay the lord instead. Other eventsthat contributed to the end of the medievalperiod were the Great Famine, the BlackDeath, the Hundred Years War, and the GreatSchism.

The Great Famine(1313-1322) Unusually heavy rains led to flooding.Eventually, crops spoiled and livestockdrowned in waterlogged fields. The result wasthe Great Famine. Farm animals needed forwork were slaughtered for food, and seedgrain was eaten. This shortage of grainincreased grain prices by more than 6 times.Millions of people died from the famine. Manyquestioned the Church why this catastrophewas happening.

The Black Death(1347-1351)

The Black Death(1347-1351) The Black Death (bubonic plague) occurred only 25years after the Great Famine. Rats with fleas carryingthe disease entered Europe from Asia on trading ships.Between 1347 and 1351, 25 million people, about onethird of Europe’s population, died in the epidemic.People were buried in mass graves without receivingany blessing from the Church.

The Black Death, cont’d(1347-1351) Some blamed Jewish people for poisoning thewells; others claimed the plague was God’spunishment for sinful living. The Black Deathcreated a labor shortage in Europe. Largenumbers of peasants escaped from serfdomwhen landowners and towns, needinglaborers, offered them freedom in exchangefor work.

The Hundred Years’ War(1337-1453) The Hundred Years’ War between England andFrance broke out when the French king diedwithout an heir, and the King of Englandclaimed the French throne. This long period ofwarfare slowly strengthened royal power inboth countries. Instead of relying on a feudalarmy based on the service of his nobles, eachking developed a standing army of footsoldiers.

The Hundred Years’ War(1337-1453) New weapons emerged, such as the Englishlong bow. Later gunpowder and cannonswere introduced from China. Knights becameless important in battle. Both England andFrance also developed greater national feeling,and loyalty to their kings.

The Hundred Years’ War(1337-1453) Joan of Arc, a young French maiden, ralliedFrench troops around the heir to the throne. Sheturned the tide when she successfully drove theEnglish out of the city of Orleans and crowned thenew French king at Rheims Cathedral.Later, Joan wascaptured and burned atthe stake by the Englishas a witch. But within20 years after her death,the war was over.

Joan of Arc

The Great Schism(1378-1417) The Pope often clashed with Europe’s secular(non-religious) rulers. Kings sought the rightto appoint bishops, who controlled vast areasof land; they also wanted to try priests in royalcourts, and to tax Church lands. The Poperesisted these demands.

The Great Schism, cont’d(1378-1417) In 1305, a Frenchman was elected Pope. Hemoved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon inFrance, where it fell under the French King’sinfluence. In 1378, an Italian was elected Pope,who decided to move the Papacy back toRome. French cardinals claimed the electionwas unlawful and elected a French Pope tokeep the Papacy in Avignon. This schism (split)greatly weakened the Church’s authority.

The Great Schism, cont’d(1378-1417) A Church Councilmade matters worseby electing a thirdPope in 1409. Finally,a new Church Councildeposed all threePopes, and elected asingle Pope in 1417,but the church’sprestige was greatlyweakened.

The Renaissance A new interest in learning about the classicalcivilizations of Greece and Rome developed inthe city-states of Italy in the 1400’s. This led toa period of great intellectual and artisticcreativity, known as the Renaissance, meaning“rebirth.” The renaissance is often consideredas one of the great turning points in thehistory of Western Civilization.

The Renaissance, cont’d The Renaissance began in Italy in part becauseof its strategic location on the MediterraneanSea. As trade between Asia and Europeincreased, the cities of Italy emerged ascenters of banking, commerce, andhandicrafts. Genoa, Pisa, and Venice becameimportant centers of Mediterranean trade. Ashome to the Popes, Rome collected revenuesfrom throughout Europe.

The Renaissance, cont’d The city-states of Milan, Florence, and Siennagrew wealthy from banking, farming, andmaking goods. Italian city-states alsoflourished because no single ruler, as inFrance, had united the peninsula and crushedtheir independence.

The Renaissance, cont’d During the Renaissance, wealthy Italianmerchants and nobles acted as patrons,supporting artists, writers and scholars.Secularism increased as people began to showgreater interest in this world than in the lifehereafter. People used observation andexperience to explain the world, rather thansimply relying on traditional Church teachings.

The Renaissance, cont’d In Italy, scholars were still surrounded by theremains of ancient civilizations. They wereimpressed by the achievements of preChristian artists and thinkers. Like the ancientGreeks, Renaissance thinkers believed in thepower of human reason to explain the world.They looked on man as the focus of all things.Humanists placed great emphasis on thedignity, worth, and uniqueness of each person.

The Impact of the Renaissance Renaissance artists, architects, scholars,and writers and scientists created alegacy of achievement that stillinfluences us today.The Artistic Impact: Paintingand SculptureBefore the Renaissance, art in Italy wasgreatly influenced by Byzantine styles.Religious paintings were highlydecorative, often with gold and jewels,but appeared flat and un-lifelike. Figuresoften floated in space without shadows.The size of a figure was based on it’simportance, not where it was placed in thepicture.

In the 1300s, the painter Giotto (1276-1337) hadalready astonished Italians by painting in an entirelynew style, using scenes with figures in lifelike space.Giotto’s figures stood firmly on the ground, becamesmaller as they receded in space, were given depthby realistic shading, and showed emotions andgestures.

During the Renaissance, each generation of Italian artists madeimprovements to make their paintings more realistic. Theirchallenge was to show three dimensional space on a twodimensional surface. Masaccio (1401-1428) and other artistsdeveloped the rules of perspective, using guidelines to calculatehow things recede in the distance until they reached a vanishingpoint. These artists also introduced shadows and other realisticeffects.

Italian painting reached its peakduring the “High Renaissance” withpaintings of Leonardo Da Vinci(1452-1519) was a sculptor andinventor as well as painter of suchworks as the Mona Lisa and The LastSupper. Da Vinci discovered how touse shadowing and blurred lines,especially on the eyes and mouth, tomake his subjects appear incrediblylifelike. Leonardo also had one ofthe best scientific minds of his time.To understand human anatomy, hedissected human corpses. Hisnotebooks include designs for aparachute and machine gun.

originalrestored

Leonardo Da Vinci

Michelangelo (1475-1564) was a Florentine artist. His majorsculptures, such as David, Moses, and the Pieta, were startlinglyrealistic, just like the paintings of the time. Each sculpture wascarved from a single slab of marble. His giant fresco painting ofBible scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome isconsidered one of the greatest works of art of all time. A fresco is apainting made on fresh plaster. Michelangelo’s sculptures andpaintings equally glorified the human form.

TheSistineChapel

The Artistic Impact: Architecture Renaissance architects studied the ruins of buildings fromancient Rome to develop a new Renaissance style. Theyabandoned the pointed arches and ornamentation of theMiddle Ages. They used the columns and circular arches ofancient architecture for a simpler classical style. In earlyRenaissance Florence, citizens built a large cathedral but didnot know how to complete its giant roof. They held acompetition among architects. Filippo Brunelleschi, who hadstudied Roman buildings, was chosen as the winner. Hedeveloped a dome that created an immense interior space. Atthe time, the cathedral in Florence was the largest church inthe world. These accomplishments in art demonstrated theRenaissance fascination with this world rather than the next,as well as the technical achievements possible from theapplication of reason.

FlorenceCathedral

The Intellectual Impact:Scholarship and Literature Renaissance humanists studied classical Roman and Greekliterature, poetry, and philosophy. The Italian scholar Petrarch, the“Father of Humanism,” collected and studied ancient texts. Newmethods of criticizing texts led some, like Erasmus, to question theChurch. Other Renaissance authors wrote on secular (non-religious)subjects. Renaissance writers described the dignity of man, celebrated thepleasures of the senses and instructed nobles in how to behave in aprince’s court. Many writers, like Boccaccio, wrote in thevernacular (local) language instead of Latin. As the Renaissancespread, writers such as Rabelais in France, William Shakespeare inEngland, and Cervantes in Spain completed works in their ownnative languages.

The Political Impact Niccolo Machiavelli was a courtier and politician in Florence, themost powerful Renaissance city-state. His book, The Prince, was aguidebook in how to secure and maintain political power.Machiavelli argued that the most successful rulers were not thosewho acted according to laws or conscience, but those who werewilling to do whatever was necessary to hold power: “the endjustifies the means.”

The Political Impact The wealth of the Italian city-states, the weakeningof the Church, the reasoning of writers likeMachiavelli contributed to the Renaissance conceptof “reason of state.” Rulers justified taking whatevermeasures they needed to strengthen their state inorder to survive. They collected taxes and raisedarmies, often by hiring professional soldiers. Theyalso exchanged ambassadors, creating moderndiplomacy. Rulers in larger states like France sooncopied these practices.

The Economic Impact Renaissance ideas and products quickly spread all over Europe.People strove to improve their material conditions, while thewealthy accumulated more luxury goods. This encouraged andincrease in trade, a greater variety of products (especially clothes,foods, wines, and furnishings), and the growth of cities.The Intellectual Impact:Science and Technology The Renaissance spirit of inquiry also led to important discoveriesin science. The Church taught that the Earth was the center of theuniverse. Nicholas Copernicus (1473 – 1453), a Polish scientist,took careful measurements that led him to conclude that theEarth orbited the sun. His work was banned by the Church, sinceit opposed Church doctrine.

Nicholas Copernicus

The Renaissance A new interest in learning about the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome developed in the city-states of Italy in the 1400's. This led to a period of great intellectual and artistic creativity, known as the Renaissance, meaning "rebirth." The renaissance is often considered as one of the great turning points in the