The Rebirth of Western Civilization
European Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation
Sep 26, 2009
For one thousand years Europe was loosely unified under the banner of the Roman Catholic Church. In a time when civil and religious laws were intertwined in the fabric of European society, the Church held the people of Europe in a tight grip. The papacy declared its absolute control of all aspects of life as well as eternal conditions in the afterlife.
Renaissance History
In the beginning, the artists of the sixteenth century began to question convention and explore the possibilities of art for art’s sake. Unlike the previous thousand years of Christian art these bold, new innovators began to paint and sculpt humanity for its intrinsic beauty alone; and their public demanded more.
While this movement occurred within the confines of Roman Catholic Christianity, it served to challenge many ancient conventions of the Church. Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton all encouraged heliocentric ideas, mechanical philosophy, and the scientific method within an academically hungry Europe.
The Effects of the European Renaissance
The effect of the Renaissance was devastating to the general unity once imposed by the Roman Catholic Church. It was in this socio-political environment that two great movements were born: European Exploration and the Protestant Reformation.
The tendency towards curiosity evoked by the Renaissance grew in the commonest of men across Europe and encouraged a collective questioning of the Church’s authority. The same desire drove men to create and invent. From the efforts of inventors the printing press was born. After that a moderately educated public could have in their own possession the wisdom of God in the form of a printed Bible.
The Protestant Reformation
As the collective curiosity grew, men and women began to search the scriptures for a personal understanding of God’s Word. From this endeavor Protestantism was born in Switzerland with Ulrich Zwingli. These kinds of personal conversions were met with brutal judgment by the papacy. Most offenders were burned to death. Printers of Bibles were no exception. The Roman Catholic Church set out to control the protestant problem by exterminating dissenters. However, people now had access to books. Their readings brought them to the same “heretical” conclusion: They could determine for themselves the meaning of the Word of God without the Church.
The Age of Exploration
Many people were forced from their homes as Protestants gained new ground or Catholics took back old lands. A new idea crept into the collective psyche of Europe, expansion.
Many forces contributed to the era of European Exploration. However, it was the persecution of a growing number of Protestants that led to the idea of colonization in the new world. The vast expanse of ocean between Europe and the New World gave the early religious nonconformists a sense of freedom they had long desired.
It is these movements that led to the discovery of the New World. The image of the separatists settling in North America is the culmination of two hundred years of scientific, artistic, and religious struggle within the Medieval Christian world.
References:
Strayer, Joseph R. The Mainstream of Civilization: Part One to 1715. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969.
McGarry, Daniel D. Sources of Western Civilization: Volume Two. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1963.
Burns, Edward McNall. World Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture. New York: Norton & Company, 1980.
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