Cultural and Intellectual Developments
1450-1750
Early Modern Period
- Cultural and Intellectual Developments
- Cultural/Intellectual thought before 1450
- Life before
- Dominated by Christianity for 1000 years
- Feudal system dominated political/social structure for 500 years
- Dominated by concern for local issues
- salvation
- territorial disputes
- Black Death
- lack of education outside monasteries
- small-scale trade
- Dominated by concern for local issues
- Greece/Rome essentially forgotten
- What influenced shift
- Crusades exposed Christians to advanced Islamic Civilization
- Countries unified under centralized world
- Increased trade fueled contacts with other worlds
- Universities became centers of learning
- Scholasticism – exposed to rest of world and Europe’s past
- Byzantine and Islamic empires preserved the past
- added to knowledge of math and science
- Four major movements – Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment
- Shift in thought
- No longer backward, isolated, self-involved region on edge of major civilizations
- the dominant civilization in the world
- shift in exploration and expansion caused and caused by shifts in thought
- Not quick, broad or in equal proportions
- long time to penetrate into all circles
- people with power jealously guarded it
- peasant class didn’t participate
- not educated
- not in position to learn about
- Life before
- Renaissance
- Why the Renaissance?
- Black Death subsides – populations increase
- People move to cities
- Demand for products
- Middle Class emerges – bankers, merchants, traders
- Huge influx of money
- Interactions with Muslim world
- preservation of Greco-Roman learning by Muslims occupying Spain
- Weakening Byzantine Empire
- Allowed for more interactions between Muslim/European traders
- Northern Italian city-states getting rich
- wealthy from supplying goods to Crusaders
- transporting goods to Crusaders
- Byzantines no longer dominating trade
- Italy a patchwork of feudal domains
- Scholars uncovering long-forgotten Roman and Greek written works
- Location on site of former ruins - Italy
- Humanism – focus on human endeavor
- Life useless, goal salvation – suck it up and hopefully you’ll die and go to heaven
- Revisited texts from past
- Role of humanity – personal accomplishments, personal happiness
- Literature/history of Greece/Rome has tons of examples
- Shift from afterlife to here and now
- Impact – focus on individuals means less of a focus on institutions – i
- Church
- Renaissance Man – multifaceted, multitalented – da Vinci – artist, scientist, musician, architect, engineer
- Characteristics of Renaissance Art
- themes before primarily religious, now more secular
- subjects = monarchs, popes, merchants, Greek/Roman deities, contemporary events, ordinary
- human figure shown more realistically – study of anatomy
- use perspective – three dimensional
- use of tempera replaced with oil paints
- Rebirth in the arts
- Powerful families in city-states – Florence, Venice, Milan, Rome
- Medici – other families became patrons
- Competed to show off who had the latest/best artists
- Human figure is realistic
- Not flat, two-dimensional, not proportional to surroundings
- Light, shadow
- autopsies
- Linear perspective
- Nearby objects drawn bigger
- Focal point
- Roman Church embraces
- Art adorns palaces/cathedrals
- Huge domes from architects
- Spread North
- More religious – colors/symbols
- Famed portraitists
- Compared to before
- Religious vs. religious and secular
- Art in cathedrals vs. public plazas/homes
- Flat and stiff vs. realistic, softer, human, 3-D
- Not worldly vs. of this world
- Greater variety of colors
- Powerful families in city-states – Florence, Venice, Milan, Rome
- Writing
- Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press
- Invented by Song Dynasty centuries earlier
- Printing books now easier
- Before…too expensive…left to monasteries
- Before…printed in Latin
- Growing middle class starts buying books
- papermaking flourishes – from Arabs, from Chinese
- People more educated – demanded more books
- helped spread Protest Reformation views
- First books practical or political
- Machiavelli – The Prince – maintain power – end justifies the means
- Self-interest more important than morals
- Machiavelli – The Prince – maintain power – end justifies the means
- Books became printed for Middle Class
- Goal then merely for entertainment
- Focus on daily lives of people
- Fluorished in England and Low Countries – Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium
- Erasmus – In Praise of Folly – satirizes politics
- Sir Thomas More – Utopia – ideal society – shared wealth/common interests
- William Shakespeare
- Humanism focus
- Human faults
- Strengths/faults comedy/tragedy
- Works explored classical world – Julius Caesar, etc.
- Humanism focus
- Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press
- Why the Renaissance?
- Protestant Reformation
- Power of the Church under feudalism
- Prince and emperors didn’t like sharing power with pope
- But…power increased if sanctioned by pope
- One unifying force
- Undisputed control on otherworldly issues
- But…also had huge sway over worldly issues
- Could only get to heaven if you do it the Church’s way
- Power of Eastern Orthodox Church falls with fall of Constantinople in 1453
- Official religion for only Russia and easternmost parts of Europe
- And even some of these were controlled by Turkish rule
- Official religion for only Russia and easternmost parts of Europe
- Prince and emperors didn’t like sharing power with pope
- Church gets into trouble
- Sells indulgences
- Needs to finance patrons – Renaissance artists
- Reduces time in purgatory for self, family members already there
- Generates income – maintains power over masses
- Controls huge blocks of land
- Doesn’t pay taxes
- Loses legitimacy when there are two popes for awhile
- France 7 decade transfer of papacy to Avignon
- Two popes claiming allegiance from Catholics
- Church too concerned with wealth power
- Clergy not well-trained/spiritual
- Some appointed for political purposes, not spiritual
- Corrupt – spiritually bankrupt
- Early attempts at reform
- John Wycliffe – Oxford University – Church should return to spiritual values
- body burned and followers persecuted
- Jan Hus – Bohemian - urged reform
- Burned at the stake
- Led to decades-long war throughout Holy Roman Empire
- Savonarola – Dominican friar – clergy
- used violence to fight Church
- John Wycliffe – Oxford University – Church should return to spiritual values
- Sells indulgences
- Martin Luther
- Frustrations
- Selling of indulgences
- Worldly nature of Rome
- Church services not in vernacular
- Salvation by God through grace, not indulgences or through Church
- Don’t need Church as intermediary – go right to Bible
- Diet at Worms – saved by prince, not killed – refused to recant
- Frustrations
- Christianity Splits
- Consequences
- Luther’s followers – Lutheran
- New leaders with other Biblical interpretations
- John Calvin – predestination – the Elect
- Later Huguenots in France, Pilgrims in U.S.
- John Calvin – predestination – the Elect
- England – Henry VIII creates Anglican Church
- Because Pope refused annulment
- Allows King to confiscate Church property – pass out to nobles
- Philosophical consequence
- If firmest institution – the Church – could be questioned, anything is fair game
- Nature of universe
- Role of government
- Foundation for future revolutions
- Protestant Beliefs
- Originally – favored institutional simplicity
- Believed the Catholic Church too concerned with politics, bureaucracy
- But…when Protestant Church got larger…guess what happened?
- Less emphasis on rituals/sacraments
- Opposed veneration of Mary/Saints
- Only grace of God can save sinful man/woman – not pope, priest, ritual
- Reading the Bible and interpreting for selves
- Led to higher literacy rates
- More lenient about divorce
- Allowed clergy to marry
- rejected transubstantiation – communion – wine and bread = blood and body
- Originally – favored institutional simplicity
- Consequences
- Counter-Reformation – Catholic Reformation
- Gained credibility
- Stopped selling indulgences
- Trained Priests/Bishops
- Encourage clerics to live Christian life
- Jesuits – stricter training
- Reconfirmed absolute authority – didn’t budge
- Sunday mass mandatory
- Concil of Trent – 1545>1563 – defined rules
- How to get salvation
- Latin
- punished heretics
- Succeeds in winning back converts
- Gained credibility
- Results – European conflict
- Southern Europe + France and S. Germany are Catholic
- England, N. Germany, Scandinavia, Calvin – Protestant, Anglican, or Calvinist
- Effects of Reformation
- Luther’s insistence on Bible being translated to German/vernacular spread literacy
- support of German princes led to increased nationalism
- But…Thirty Years War – German princes – Lutheranism vs. Catholicism
- Germany can’t become unified nation
- Religious wars freed Netherlands (Calvinism) from Spain
- Henry VIII – separated from Church
- Head of Church of England (Anglican Church)
- Act of Supremacy – stripped Roman Catholic Church of land > gave to some nobles
- End of medieval way of life where Catholic Church sole source of stability
- Anticlericalism
- dismay over corruption of clergy
- Luther’s teachings say priests not necessary
- Growth of middle class – good works/material success a confirmation of salvation
- Created middle class that eventually established European democracies
- Increased questioning of political authority
- strengthening the power of monarchs as papal power decreased
- Encouraged education – Protestants wanted children to be able to read/interpret the Bible
- improved the status of women within marriage – writers encouraged love between man/wife
- created new Protestant churches
- Power of the Church under feudalism
- Scientific Revolution
- Previous beliefs
- Aristotle – Earth center of universe
- Scientific thought built on this fallacy, tried to explain
- Church/political structure inhibited scientific thought
- Church – focus on salvation
- Feudal system – focus on daily, mundane tasks and military conquest
- Changed by
- Growth of universities
- Exposure to scientific successes of Islam
- Aristotle – Earth center of universe
- Scientific Advances
- Copernicus – heliocentric theory
- Galileo – logically explained heliocentric theory – banned book, heretic
- Scientific method
- Reason alone not good enough
- Prove what mind concluded
- Demonstrate it to others
- Open it to experimentation
- Prove with mathematical equations
- Use scientific instruments to prove
- Brahe – observatory
- Bacon – inductive reasoning
- Kepler – planetary motion
- Newton – calculus to prove theories
- Science for practical uses
- Labor saving devices
- Power sources from water/wind
- Long term effects
- People questioning Church even more
- Some become Atheists – no god
- Deists – great clockmaker in the sky – set the world going, then hands off
- people stop relying on supernatural explanations
- People think they can explain other elements of the world through scientific method/questions
- Empirical research – based on observation and carefully obtained data
- Gave rise to Enlightenment/Age of Reason
- Different than East Asia
- Chinese dealt with specific facts that were practical in nature
- Europeans formulated general laws
- Previous beliefs
- Enlightenment
- Life before Enlightenment
- Monarchs gain power
- Centralize authority
- Nationalism for people
- Promote exploration/colonization
- Rule with absolute authority
- Claim Divine Right – God supported what monarch chose
- Divine Right vs. Mandate of Heaven
- Mandate – emperors divinely chosen, rule as long as pleased heaven
- Didn’t rule justly, responsibly – heaven would take away
- Divine Right – rule however you want – God chose you
- Mandate – emperors divinely chosen, rule as long as pleased heaven
- Monarchs gain power
- Enlightened philosophes discussed
- Nature of political structures
- Social contracts – gov’ts exist for people, people give up power
- Conflicting Ideas
- Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan – people evil – enlightened despot – China
- John Locke – born free w/ inalienable rights – need consent of people
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau – humans free to obey laws – if just
- Montesquieu – separation of powers – legislative, executive, judicial
- Adam Smith – Wealth of Nations – laissez faire economics
- Government regulation minimal to allow for free operation of supply and demand
- Nature of social structures
- Voltaire – religious toleration
- Deism – god who created earth then let run on natural law – great clockmaker
- Created encyclopedia – Denis Diderot’s Encyclopedie
- Included scientific and social scientific knowledge
- Nature of political structures
- Effects
- Seeds of revolution
- Questioning of traditional authority
- Some leaders became Enlightened Monarchs/Despots
- Joseph II - Austria
- Frederick II – Prussia
- Basis of modern technology and political liberalism
- Seeds of revolution
- Characteristics of Enlightened thinkers
- science/natural law governs human nature
- power of human reason/rationalism to discern principles of natural law
- once determined, people should live by these laws
- living by these laws would lead to society’s economic, political and social problems
- this would lead to human progress
- Challenges of Enlightenment
- find an end to injustice, inequality, and superstition
- toleration for all religions
- breaking down of institutions (Church) that were corrupt and not based on natural law/reason
- Life before Enlightenment
- Comparative Global Causes of Cultural Change
- Comparative Global Impacts of Cultural Change
- Changes and continuities in Confucianism
- Major developments and exchanges in the arts
- Cultural/Intellectual thought before 1450
Subject:
US History [1]
Subject X2:
US History [1]