Renaissance
Growth of Cities
As trade revived so did cities. Merchants began to settle in the old Roman cities. Artisans followed. They had the skills to make the items that merchants could sell. New cities and towns were founded, especially in northern Europe. Typically a group of merchants built a settlement near a castle on a trade route and the lord would offer protection. If the settlement prospered, walls were built to protect it. The merchants and artisans of these cities later came to be called bourgeoisie from the German word burg, which means “a walled enclosure.”
Compared to either ancient or modern cities, medieval cities were small. A large trading city might have five thousand inhabitants. There were larger Italian cities—Venice, Florence, Genoa, Milan, and Naples each had almost a hundred thousand inhabitants. Even the largest European cities, however, were small compared to Constantinople or Baghdad. Medieval towns were surrounded by stone walls, which were expensive to build. Therefore, the space within was crowded. Streets were narrow, with the second and third story of buildings reaching out over the streets. Fire danger was great. Buildings were mostly wood, and candles and wood fires were used for light and heat. Medieval cities were not pleasant. They were dirty and smelled from human and animal waste. Wood fires created air pollution.
Cities and towns became manufacturing centers. A variety of crafts were manufactured in the houses: cloth, metalwork, shoes, and leather goods. Beginning in the twelfth century, craftspeople organized themselves into guilds, or business associations. They played a leading role in urban economic life. By the thirteenth century almost every craft had a guild, as did some kinds of merchants.
Late Middle Ages
The Middle Ages in Europe had reached a high point in the 1200s. European society in the 1300s and early 1400s (the Late Middle Ages) was challenged by disastrous forces, one of which was the Black Death—the most devastating natural disaster in European history. Bubonic plague was the most common form of the Black Death and was spread by black rats infested with fleas carrying a deadly bacterium. Many millions died of the plague between 1347 and 1351. The death of so many people in the fourteenth century had severe economic consequences—trade declined and a shortage of workers caused a dramatic rise in the price of labor. The decline in the number of people lowered the demand for food, resulting in falling prices.
Popes of the Roman Catholic Church reached the height of their power in the 1200s. In the 1300s, a series of problems led to a decline in the Church’s political and spiritual positions. Struggles with the king led a French pope to take up residence in Avignon in southern France in 1305, and the popes resided there until 1377. The pope returned to Rome in 1377, but after his death, a group of Italian cardinals elected an Italian pope, while a group of French cardinals elected a French pope. Each line of popes denounced the other. This division was called the Great Schism and lasted from 1378 to 1417 and divided Europe. Although the schism was finally ended in 1417, people’s faith in both the papacy and the Church were undermined, and the Church had lost much of its political and spiritual authority.
The Late Middle Ages also saw war and political instability. The Hundred Years’ War between England and France lasted from 1337 to 1453. A peasant girl, Joan of Arc, helped the French armies to finally bring the war to an end. In the fifteenth century, rulers from France, England, and other European states attempted to reestablish the centralized power of monarchies. The monarchies of France, England, and Spain became known as the new monarchies. The Holy Roman Empire had not developed a strong monarchical authority. Germany had become a land of hundreds of independent states.
Italian States
The northern and central Italian city-states of Milan, Venice, and Florence played crucial roles in the Italian politics of the time. They prospered from trade with the Byzantine, Islamic, and Mediterranean civilizations. They set up trading centers in the east due to the Crusades, and they exchanged goods with merchants in England and the Netherlands.
The republic of Florence dominated the Tuscany region. In the fourteenth century a wealthy group of merchants controlled the Florentine government, led a series of successful wars against their neighbors, and established Florence as a major city-state. In 1434 Cosimo de’ Medici took control of Florence. He, and later his grandson Lorenzo, dominated Florence when it was the cultural center of Italy. In the late 1440s Florence’s economy declined because of English and Flemish competition for the cloth market. At the same time a Dominican preacher named Girolamo Savonarola condemned the Medicis’ corruption and excesses. Many people followed him, causing the Medicis to give them control of Florence. Eventually people tired of
Savonarola’s regulations on gambling, swearing, dancing, painting, and other such activities. He was convicted of heresy and executed in 1498 after criticizing the pope. The Medicis returned to power.
Machiavelli
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the most influential works on political power in the Western world. It concerns how to get and keep political power. Previously authors had stressed that princes should be ethical and follow Christian principles. Machiavelli argued the prince’s attitude toward power should be based on understanding that human nature is self-interested. A prince, therefore, should not act on moral principles but on behalf of the interests of the state. Machiavelli was among the first to abandon morality as the basis for analyzing political activity. His views influenced political leaders who followed.
Renaissance Society
The Renaissance saw some changes in the medieval division of society into three estates, or social classes. The noble or aristocrat was expected to fulfill certain ideals. The Italian Baldassare Castiglione expressed these in The Book of the Courtier.He described the characteristics of a perfect Renaissance noble. Nobles were expected to have talent, character, and grace. They also had to develop two skills: they had to perform military and physical exercises and to gain a classical education and enrich life with the arts. The noble also had to follow a standard of conduct. Nobles were to show their achievements with grace. The goal of the perfect noble was to serve his prince honestly. Nobles followed Castiglione’s principles for centuries.
Peasants made up 85 to 90 percent of the total European population, except in highly urban centers. Serfdom decreased with the decline of the manorial system. More peasants became legally free. Townspeople comprised the remainder of the third estate.
Patricians, burghers, and workers and the unemployed made up the three classes of the towns. Patricians had wealth from trade, banking, and industry. The burghers were shopkeepers, artisans, and guild members who provided goods and services for the townspeople.
Workers made pitiful wages. During the late 1300s and the 1400s, urban poverty increased dramatically. To maintain the family, parents arranged marriages, often to strengthen family or business ties. The agreement between families was sealed with a marriage contract, which included the terms of the dowry, a sum of money the bride’s family paid to the groom. The father-husband was the center of the Italian family. He gave it his name, managed the finances, and made decisions that determine his children’s lives. The mother’s role was to supervise the household. The father’s authority over his children was absolute. Children did not become adults simply by reaching an age. Rather, the father had to go before a judge and formally free a child from his authority for that person to be recognized as an adult.
Italian Renaissance
The word renaissance means rebirth. The Italian Renaissance, which spread to the rest of Europe, occurred between 1350 and 1550. The rebirth was of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Italy was largely an urban society during the Renaissance. The powerful city-states of the Middle Ages became political, economic, and social centers. A secular, or worldly, viewpoint developed in this urban society as increasing wealth created new opportunities for material enjoyment.
The Renaissance was also an age when the power of the Church declined, and society recovered from the plagues and instability of the Middle Ages. Part of this recovery was a rebirth of interest in the ancient Greek and Roman cultures. A new view of human beings that emphasized individual ability and worth emerged in the Renaissance. The well-rounded, universal person was known as a “Renaissance man” and was capable of achievements in many areas of life. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, and mathematician. The upper classes were more affected by the Italian Renaissance than the lower classes, and they embraced its ideals more. Even so, many of the intellectual and artistic achievements were hard to ignore. Churches, wealthy homes, and public buildings displayed art that celebrated the human body, classical antiquity, and religious and secular themes.
Artistic Renaissance in Italy
Renaissance artists sought to imitate nature in their works so viewers would see the reality of what they were portraying. They also had a new world perspective, one in which human beings were the “center and measure of all things.” Many of the artistic breakthroughs occurred in Florence.
The realism of perspective became a signature of Renaissance painting. The study using geometry of the laws of perspective and the organization of space and light, and the study of human movement and anatomy perfected this realistic style of painting. The realistic portrayal of individual persons, especially the human nude, became one of the chief aims of Italian Renaissance art.
The last stage of Renaissance painting is called the High Renaissance (1490–1520). The artistic giants Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo dominated this period. Leonardo mastered realistic painting, but his goal was to create idealized forms to capture the perfection of nature and the individual. Michelangelo was an accomplished painter, sculptor, and architect known for his great passion and energy. His paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome show the beauty of an idealized human being who reflects divine beauty. The more beautiful the body, the more godlike the figure.
Humanism
The secularism and individualism of the Renaissance was most apparent in its intellectual and artistic movements. One intellectual movement was humanism. Humanism was based on the classics, the literary works of ancient Greece and Rome. Humanists studied the subjects that are now known as the humanities—for example, poetry, philosophy, and history.
Petrarch (fourteenth century) did the most to foster humanism’s development. He generated a movement of finding forgotten Latin manuscripts, especially in monastic libraries. He emphasized using pure classical Latin (Roman Latin, not medieval Latin). Cicero was the model for prose and Virgil for poetry.
Vernacular Literature
Some writers wrote in the language of their regions, such as Italian, English, or French.
In the fourteenth century the Italian works of Dante helped make such vernacular literature more popular. Dante’s vernacular masterpiece is the Divine Comedy. This long poem is in three parts: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven (Paradise). Dante is led on an imaginary journey through these realms, ending in Paradise, where he beholds God: “the love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
Erasmus and Christian Humanism
Italian humanism spread to northern Europe creating a movement called Christian humanism. Christian humanists believed in the ability of human beings to reason and improve themselves. They wanted to reform the Catholic Church. This reform would occur through developing inner piety, or religious feeling, based on studying the works of Christianity.
The best-known Christian humanist was Desiderius Erasmus. He developed what he called “the philosophy of Christ,” meant to show people how to live good lives on a daily basis rather than how to achieve salvation. He stressed inward piety, not external observance of rules and rituals. To reform the Church, Erasmus wanted to spread the philosophy of Christ, educate people about Christianity, and criticize the abuses of the Church. In his 1509 work The Praise of Folly, he especially criticized the monks. Erasmus did not want to break away from the Church, as later reformers would. Yet people of his day said, “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.”
As trade revived so did cities. Merchants began to settle in the old Roman cities. Artisans followed. They had the skills to make the items that merchants could sell. New cities and towns were founded, especially in northern Europe. Typically a group of merchants built a settlement near a castle on a trade route and the lord would offer protection. If the settlement prospered, walls were built to protect it. The merchants and artisans of these cities later came to be called bourgeoisie from the German word burg, which means “a walled enclosure.”
Compared to either ancient or modern cities, medieval cities were small. A large trading city might have five thousand inhabitants. There were larger Italian cities—Venice, Florence, Genoa, Milan, and Naples each had almost a hundred thousand inhabitants. Even the largest European cities, however, were small compared to Constantinople or Baghdad. Medieval towns were surrounded by stone walls, which were expensive to build. Therefore, the space within was crowded. Streets were narrow, with the second and third story of buildings reaching out over the streets. Fire danger was great. Buildings were mostly wood, and candles and wood fires were used for light and heat. Medieval cities were not pleasant. They were dirty and smelled from human and animal waste. Wood fires created air pollution.
Cities and towns became manufacturing centers. A variety of crafts were manufactured in the houses: cloth, metalwork, shoes, and leather goods. Beginning in the twelfth century, craftspeople organized themselves into guilds, or business associations. They played a leading role in urban economic life. By the thirteenth century almost every craft had a guild, as did some kinds of merchants.
Late Middle Ages
The Middle Ages in Europe had reached a high point in the 1200s. European society in the 1300s and early 1400s (the Late Middle Ages) was challenged by disastrous forces, one of which was the Black Death—the most devastating natural disaster in European history. Bubonic plague was the most common form of the Black Death and was spread by black rats infested with fleas carrying a deadly bacterium. Many millions died of the plague between 1347 and 1351. The death of so many people in the fourteenth century had severe economic consequences—trade declined and a shortage of workers caused a dramatic rise in the price of labor. The decline in the number of people lowered the demand for food, resulting in falling prices.
Popes of the Roman Catholic Church reached the height of their power in the 1200s. In the 1300s, a series of problems led to a decline in the Church’s political and spiritual positions. Struggles with the king led a French pope to take up residence in Avignon in southern France in 1305, and the popes resided there until 1377. The pope returned to Rome in 1377, but after his death, a group of Italian cardinals elected an Italian pope, while a group of French cardinals elected a French pope. Each line of popes denounced the other. This division was called the Great Schism and lasted from 1378 to 1417 and divided Europe. Although the schism was finally ended in 1417, people’s faith in both the papacy and the Church were undermined, and the Church had lost much of its political and spiritual authority.
The Late Middle Ages also saw war and political instability. The Hundred Years’ War between England and France lasted from 1337 to 1453. A peasant girl, Joan of Arc, helped the French armies to finally bring the war to an end. In the fifteenth century, rulers from France, England, and other European states attempted to reestablish the centralized power of monarchies. The monarchies of France, England, and Spain became known as the new monarchies. The Holy Roman Empire had not developed a strong monarchical authority. Germany had become a land of hundreds of independent states.
Italian States
The northern and central Italian city-states of Milan, Venice, and Florence played crucial roles in the Italian politics of the time. They prospered from trade with the Byzantine, Islamic, and Mediterranean civilizations. They set up trading centers in the east due to the Crusades, and they exchanged goods with merchants in England and the Netherlands.
The republic of Florence dominated the Tuscany region. In the fourteenth century a wealthy group of merchants controlled the Florentine government, led a series of successful wars against their neighbors, and established Florence as a major city-state. In 1434 Cosimo de’ Medici took control of Florence. He, and later his grandson Lorenzo, dominated Florence when it was the cultural center of Italy. In the late 1440s Florence’s economy declined because of English and Flemish competition for the cloth market. At the same time a Dominican preacher named Girolamo Savonarola condemned the Medicis’ corruption and excesses. Many people followed him, causing the Medicis to give them control of Florence. Eventually people tired of
Savonarola’s regulations on gambling, swearing, dancing, painting, and other such activities. He was convicted of heresy and executed in 1498 after criticizing the pope. The Medicis returned to power.
Machiavelli
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli is one of the most influential works on political power in the Western world. It concerns how to get and keep political power. Previously authors had stressed that princes should be ethical and follow Christian principles. Machiavelli argued the prince’s attitude toward power should be based on understanding that human nature is self-interested. A prince, therefore, should not act on moral principles but on behalf of the interests of the state. Machiavelli was among the first to abandon morality as the basis for analyzing political activity. His views influenced political leaders who followed.
Renaissance Society
The Renaissance saw some changes in the medieval division of society into three estates, or social classes. The noble or aristocrat was expected to fulfill certain ideals. The Italian Baldassare Castiglione expressed these in The Book of the Courtier.He described the characteristics of a perfect Renaissance noble. Nobles were expected to have talent, character, and grace. They also had to develop two skills: they had to perform military and physical exercises and to gain a classical education and enrich life with the arts. The noble also had to follow a standard of conduct. Nobles were to show their achievements with grace. The goal of the perfect noble was to serve his prince honestly. Nobles followed Castiglione’s principles for centuries.
Peasants made up 85 to 90 percent of the total European population, except in highly urban centers. Serfdom decreased with the decline of the manorial system. More peasants became legally free. Townspeople comprised the remainder of the third estate.
Patricians, burghers, and workers and the unemployed made up the three classes of the towns. Patricians had wealth from trade, banking, and industry. The burghers were shopkeepers, artisans, and guild members who provided goods and services for the townspeople.
Workers made pitiful wages. During the late 1300s and the 1400s, urban poverty increased dramatically. To maintain the family, parents arranged marriages, often to strengthen family or business ties. The agreement between families was sealed with a marriage contract, which included the terms of the dowry, a sum of money the bride’s family paid to the groom. The father-husband was the center of the Italian family. He gave it his name, managed the finances, and made decisions that determine his children’s lives. The mother’s role was to supervise the household. The father’s authority over his children was absolute. Children did not become adults simply by reaching an age. Rather, the father had to go before a judge and formally free a child from his authority for that person to be recognized as an adult.
Italian Renaissance
The word renaissance means rebirth. The Italian Renaissance, which spread to the rest of Europe, occurred between 1350 and 1550. The rebirth was of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Italy was largely an urban society during the Renaissance. The powerful city-states of the Middle Ages became political, economic, and social centers. A secular, or worldly, viewpoint developed in this urban society as increasing wealth created new opportunities for material enjoyment.
The Renaissance was also an age when the power of the Church declined, and society recovered from the plagues and instability of the Middle Ages. Part of this recovery was a rebirth of interest in the ancient Greek and Roman cultures. A new view of human beings that emphasized individual ability and worth emerged in the Renaissance. The well-rounded, universal person was known as a “Renaissance man” and was capable of achievements in many areas of life. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, and mathematician. The upper classes were more affected by the Italian Renaissance than the lower classes, and they embraced its ideals more. Even so, many of the intellectual and artistic achievements were hard to ignore. Churches, wealthy homes, and public buildings displayed art that celebrated the human body, classical antiquity, and religious and secular themes.
Artistic Renaissance in Italy
Renaissance artists sought to imitate nature in their works so viewers would see the reality of what they were portraying. They also had a new world perspective, one in which human beings were the “center and measure of all things.” Many of the artistic breakthroughs occurred in Florence.
The realism of perspective became a signature of Renaissance painting. The study using geometry of the laws of perspective and the organization of space and light, and the study of human movement and anatomy perfected this realistic style of painting. The realistic portrayal of individual persons, especially the human nude, became one of the chief aims of Italian Renaissance art.
The last stage of Renaissance painting is called the High Renaissance (1490–1520). The artistic giants Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo dominated this period. Leonardo mastered realistic painting, but his goal was to create idealized forms to capture the perfection of nature and the individual. Michelangelo was an accomplished painter, sculptor, and architect known for his great passion and energy. His paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome show the beauty of an idealized human being who reflects divine beauty. The more beautiful the body, the more godlike the figure.
Humanism
The secularism and individualism of the Renaissance was most apparent in its intellectual and artistic movements. One intellectual movement was humanism. Humanism was based on the classics, the literary works of ancient Greece and Rome. Humanists studied the subjects that are now known as the humanities—for example, poetry, philosophy, and history.
Petrarch (fourteenth century) did the most to foster humanism’s development. He generated a movement of finding forgotten Latin manuscripts, especially in monastic libraries. He emphasized using pure classical Latin (Roman Latin, not medieval Latin). Cicero was the model for prose and Virgil for poetry.
Vernacular Literature
Some writers wrote in the language of their regions, such as Italian, English, or French.
In the fourteenth century the Italian works of Dante helped make such vernacular literature more popular. Dante’s vernacular masterpiece is the Divine Comedy. This long poem is in three parts: Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven (Paradise). Dante is led on an imaginary journey through these realms, ending in Paradise, where he beholds God: “the love that moves the sun and the other stars.”
Erasmus and Christian Humanism
Italian humanism spread to northern Europe creating a movement called Christian humanism. Christian humanists believed in the ability of human beings to reason and improve themselves. They wanted to reform the Catholic Church. This reform would occur through developing inner piety, or religious feeling, based on studying the works of Christianity.
The best-known Christian humanist was Desiderius Erasmus. He developed what he called “the philosophy of Christ,” meant to show people how to live good lives on a daily basis rather than how to achieve salvation. He stressed inward piety, not external observance of rules and rituals. To reform the Church, Erasmus wanted to spread the philosophy of Christ, educate people about Christianity, and criticize the abuses of the Church. In his 1509 work The Praise of Folly, he especially criticized the monks. Erasmus did not want to break away from the Church, as later reformers would. Yet people of his day said, “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.”