Modern World: The Age of Reason - Study Notes

Lesson summary

The Renaissance, the geographical discoveries and the Reformation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries mark the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world. The Renaissance put the human and the natural at the centre and relegated religion to a subordinate place; Columbus's success encouraged overseas enterprise; the Reformation changed the religious map; and strong monarchies turned Spain, France and England into nation-states.

10.1 Renaissance in Italy and its spread

• Meaning: Renaissance (Latin) means rebirth or revival of the classical learning of Greece and Rome. Its ideas: humanism, scepticism, individualism and secularism. Laypersons, not monks and nobles, led it.
• Causes: the Crusades; independent trading cities (Venice, Florence, Genoa, Lisbon, Paris, London, Antwerp, Hamburg, Nuremberg); universities at Paris, Oxford and Bologna; Roger Bacon (1214-1294), father of modern experimental science, who wanted rule by reason; Manuel Chrysaloras (came to Venice in 1393, taught Greek at Florence); Giovanni Aurispa (about 250 manuscripts, 1413-1423); scholars fleeing after the fall of Constantinople (1453); paper (China, 2nd century BCE) and Gutenberg's printing press.
• Italy as birthplace: Italians believed they descended from the ancient Romans; secular culture; rich trading cities in the centre of the Mediterranean; Medici of Florence and Sforza of Milan; Popes Nicholas V, Pius II, Julius II and Leo X as patrons.
• Medici: Cosimo de Medici controlled Florence 1434-1464; grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent; patrons of Michelangelo and Leonardo.

• Giordano Bruno was burned in Rome in 1600 for saying the earth went round the sun.
• England: Elizabethan Age (Elizabeth I, 1558-1603). Shakespeare wrote 38 plays (comedies: As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew; tragedies: Othello, Hamlet, King Lear). Marlowe wrote Dido, Queen of Carthage and Tamburlaine the Great. Francis Bacon, father of empiricism, wrote Novum Organum.

10.2 Discovery of new sea routes

• Factors: Turkish control of land routes; demand for spices; desire to control sea-borne trade; spirit of adventure; spread of Christianity; cartography (Mercator's latitude and longitude); the caravel; firearms and cannons; the mariner's compass.
• Portugal: Henry the Navigator's school at Sagres; Guinea Coast 1442; Bartholomew Diaz rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488; Vasco da Gama (1497) reached Kapad near Kozhikode; Pedro Cabral discovered Brazil (1500), traded at Kozhikode, Cochin and Cannanore.
• Spain: Columbus sailed from Palos on 3 August 1492 with the Santa Maria, Pinta and Nina and reached America, believing it India. Magellan sailed from Seville in 1519, named the Strait of Magellan and the Pacific; he was killed in the Philippines; the Vittoria returned in 1522 with 18 sailors. Cortes conquered Mexico; Pizarro crossed Panama (1530) and conquered Peru.
• Papal Bull (1493) by Pope Alexander VI: line 320 miles west of Cape Verde. Treaty of Tordesillas (1494): moved to 1,185 miles.
• Others: John Cabot (Canada for England), Verrazano (eastern Canada for France), Henry Hudson (Hudson River). Philip II's Spanish Armada (1588) of 130 vessels was destroyed by England.

10.3 Commercial Revolution

• The change from the static, local economy of the late Middle Ages to a dynamic, world-wide, capitalistic one. It was gradual.
• Causes: Italian capture of Mediterranean trade; trade with the Hanseatic League; coins such as the duca of Venice and the florin of Florence; surplus capital; demand for war materials and support of the new monarchs.
• Results: growth of banking (Bank of Sweden 1657, Bank of England 1694); mining and smelting; regulated companies such as the Merchant Adventurers; the joint-stock company with limited liability (a Dutch innovation); mercantilism; rise of the middle class; revival of slavery (over 11 million Africans shipped to the Americas); preparation for the Industrial Revolution.

10.4 Reformation and Counter-Reformation

• Causes: sale of indulgence, nepotism, simony, rich Popes from merchant families, absentee clergy, the Inquisition.
• Pioneers: Erasmus (The Praise of Folly, 1511); John Wycliffe, first to translate the Bible into English (bones burnt in 1415); John Huss of Prague, burnt alive at Constance.
• Martin Luther (1483-1546): 95 Theses at Wittenberg; Bible alone supreme; only baptism and Holy Communion; Bible in German; books burnt at the Diet of Worms; opposed the Peasants' Rebellion inspired by Thomas Muntzer.
• Zwingli (1484-1531): Zurich; influenced by Erasmus; 67 articles; opposed celibacy, indulgence, fasting and pilgrimage.
• John Calvin (1509-1564): French Protestant at Geneva; Institutes of the Christian Religion; followers were Huguenots (France), Puritans (England), Presbyterians (Scotland).
• English Reformation: started by Henry VIII; Act of Supremacy 1534; Anglican Church; Church property confiscated.
• Effects: religious divisions, literacy, better status of women, more power to kings, race for colonies, spread of Christianity.
• Counter-Reformation: Society of Jesus by Ignatius of Loyola (Paris, 15 August 1534; Francis Xavier); Council of Trent (1545-1563) under Pope Paul III; the Inquisition (about 110,000 tried, 60,000 executed). The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) reflected the division.

10.5 Rise of new monarchies

• Causes: decline of feudalism (plague, Crusades), gunpowder and the English longbow, the Church's tithe (10%), ecclesiastical courts and excommunication (Henry IV of Germany by Pope Gregory VII); the Black Death weakened the Church.
• Spain: Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile; took power in 1479; drove out the Moors; Spanish Inquisition; wealth from America.
• England: War of the Roses (York, white rose; Lancaster, red rose); Henry Tudor became Henry VII (1485-1509), abolished livery and maintenance and set up the Star Chamber.
• France: Hundred Years' War; Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans (burnt 1430, saint 1920); Louis XI brought Burgundy under control (about 1483) and created a permanent army.