The Northern Renaissance

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The Northern Renaissance
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• In Northern Europe, people were less aware of any
  dramatic break with the Middle Ages.
• Renaissance ideas flowed to the North through
  trade, warfare, and the work of Italian
  craftsmen.
• In the North, old was blended with new, rather
  than discarded as in Italy.
• Most importantly, religion remained the central
  part of life in the North.
• Johannes Gutenberg

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The Beliefs of Northern Humanists

• Northern humanists believed the best elements of
  classical culture should be combined with
  Christianity.
• They stressed the use of reason, rather than
  dogma, as the source of faith.
• They believed education was the key to improving
  human piety.

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Mysticism

• The belief that the individual soul could commune
  with God. Mystics had no need of the trappings of
  the Church, or even of the Church itself. This
  was an extremely important development. Now,
  people who were interested in religion could
  remain laymen. They didnt have to go into the
  clergy.
• This means that the church didnt have these
  people in its ranks to promote reform. Instead,
  they began to attack the Church from outside,
  setting the stage for religious upheaval.

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Jacques dEtaples

• DEtaples believed that more accurate texts of
  the Bible would lead people to live better lives.
  His translations of the Bible were used by many
  of the earliest leaders of the Reformation,
  including Luther.

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Thomas More
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Utopia

• This work is about an island somewhere off the
  coast of the New World. This society is broadly
  socialistic, with a perfect legal, social, and
  political system, governed by Christian
  principles.
• Mores work is a criticism of the greed and
  corruption of his own time. It was extremely
  radical for the time.
• The Earthly Paradise, H. Bosch

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Erasmus

• Believed, like the Italians, that the Middle Ages
  had been inferior to Classical times.
• Believed Christianity had been born of a
  classical environment and he hated the medieval
  ways of the Church-the rituals, the ceremonies,
  and the corruption.
• His Praise of Folly openly criticized the
  corruption of the Church.
• He tried to show how one might take part in the
  secular world while remaining a devout Christian.
• Achieved international acclaim, widely respected
  even among Church officials. He was a celebrity
  in his day.
• In his Treatise on Preparation For Death he made
  clear his position, that faith in the atonement
  of Christ, and not in the sacraments and rituals
  of the church, are the only guarantee of eternal
  life.

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Erasmus

• The two themes that permeate the works of Erasmus
  are that education is the key to reform, and to
  moral and intellectual improvement. Secondly, he
  believed that true Christianity is an inner
  attitude of the heart and spirit, not a series of
  formal rituals

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Rabelais

• The great French humanist Rabelais wrote in a
  decidedly secular flavor. His greatest works were
  a series of books about the giant, Gargantua, and
  his son Pantagruel.

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Gargantua and Pantagruel

• Five novels about a giant and his son whose
  misadventures are full of vulgar humor, violence,
  satire, and crude manners. The greatness of the
  series is that they can be interpreted on several
  levels. Rabelais had broken new literary ground.

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High Middle Ages

• Contrary to what many Renaissance thinkers
  believed, the Middle Ages had not been fruitless.
  It had borne some of the basic institutions of
  Western civilization the town, the idea of a
  middle class, capitalism, strong bureaucracies,
  juries and sheriffs, and an entire legal
  framework that had been passed on from the Romans.

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The New Monarchs

• Louis XI of France, the Spider King.
• Henry VII of England, founder of the Tudor
  dynasty
• Ferdinand and Isabella, whose marriage united
  Spain

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New Monarchs

• Governments had become weak during the 1300s
• New monarchs offered strong central government as
  a guarantee of law and order
• They got the support of the middle class and
  towns
• Kings used tax money to organize and better
  armies, based on foot soldiers using pikes and
  longbows
• They used old Roman law to break down local
  common law that gave the nobles their power.

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The middle class

• As towns had grown in the High Middle Ages,
  monarchs had come to realize how valuable they
  were. Instead of relying on the nobility (who
  maintained their own private armies) monarchs
  began to tax the towns to raise money, instead of
  relying on nobles. As a result, feudalism was
  weakened permanently.

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Charles VII (R. 1422-1461)

• This was the King that Joan of Arc had fought to
  see crowned.
• He finally expelled the English from France.
• He also reorganized royal finances and gave more
  power to the middle class

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France- House of Valois 1461-1483

• B) France- House of Valois 1461-1589
• Louis XI continued the steady geographic
  expansion from Paris
• French Kings became absolute and began to rule
  without their Parliament (Estates-General)
• They gained control over taxation, clergy, and
  army

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The War of the Roses

• The Wars of the Roses (14551487) were a series
  of civil wars fought over the throne of England
  between adherents of the House of Lancaster and
  the House of York. Both houses were branches of
  the Plantagenet royal house, tracing their
  descent from King Edward III.
• The name "Wars of the Roses" was not used during
  the time of the wars, but has its origins in the
  badges associated with the two royal houses, the
  Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York.

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Henry VII House of Tudor 1485-1603

• Henry VII of House of Lancaster won the War of
  the Roses
• He outlawed livery and maintenance.
• Used the Star Chamber to preserve order.
• United patriotism and Nationalism in England.

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Spain

• Spain had a different history, which was much
  more pluralistic that France and England. Moors,
  Jews, Latins, and Visigoths all vied for position
  in Iberia.
• The reconquista was a centuries long military
  effort to recapture all of Spain from the Moors.

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Spain

• By 1450, all Christian kingdoms in Spain had
  organized into two, Aragon and Castile. These two
  were united in the marriage of Ferdinand and
  Isabelle in 1469
• Spanish Christians were united in their Crusade
  against the Moors. In Spain, therefore,
  patriotism was really a feeling of being
  Catholic rather than being Spanish. All
  through the next 300 years, Spain was the most
  Catholic nation of all.
• Examples
• -The Inquisition
• -Expulsion of the Moors and Jews
• -Exported their crusade to America
• In Spain, the national and Catholic were fused

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Spanish Jewry

• As in much of Europe, Jews in Spain were barely
  tolerated and sometimes subject to outright
  genocide.
• Anti-Semitism had several roots the belief that
  Jews had killed Christ that Jews were money
  hungry and preyed on other people and that Jews
  were racially inferior.

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The Inquisition

• The Inquisition had traditionally been an
  instrument of religious purification. In this
  case, Ferdinand and Isabella were using it to
  politically unify Spain by eliminating Jews and
  Muslims.
• Spanish Jewry ultimately was reduced by 75. This
  proved to cripple the Spanish economy.

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Charles V

• Grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, heir to
  nearly half of Europe. His very power was a
  testament to the long term success of the actions
  of Ferdinand and Isabella.