Review Chapter 4: Renaissance, Reformation, and Exploration

The Renaissance

The growing interest in the exchange of ideas that had been fostered in Europe as a result of the Crusades soon led to an era of increased scientific and artistic thought known as the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a celebration of humanity. During this period, many people began to challenge the teachings of the church and to experiment with scientific research and intellectual thought. Lasting from about 1300 to 1600 in most parts of Europe, the Renaissance bridged the gap between the Middle Ages and the early modern era.

One of the defining elements of Renaissance society was adherence to a school of thought known as humanism. Humanism placed a great deal of emphasis on the concept of reason and was chiefly concerned with the problems of everyday human life.

The Renaissance first emerged in Italy, where the Crusades had fostered the growth of many large cities with a wealthy citizenry, such as Florence, Naples, and Rome. Eventually, Renaissance ideas began to spread outward through the rest of Europe.

MAJOR FIGURES OF THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Renaissance ideas had reached much of Western Europe. The relatively quick spread of these ideas through such a vast area was due, in part, to Johannes Gutenberg's invention, around 1452 to 1453, of a printing press that used movable type, and the official publication of his Gutenberg Bible in 1455. As the concepts of humanism and realism that were such a large part of the Italian Renaissance began to permeate the rest of Europe, they were meshed with Northern Europe's religious devotion to create a unique variation on the original Renaissance known as the Northern Renaissance.

With the spread of Renaissance ideals throughout Europe, people became more aware of themselves as individuals. More important, they began to examine their religious beliefs and question the authority of the church. In time, this led to a major religious upheaval in Europe.

The Protestant Reformation

The changing attitudes of Europeans toward religion eventually culminated in the Protestant Reformation, which saw the emergence of several new variants of Christianity that were entirely separate from the Roman Catholic Church.

The early stages of the Protestant Reformation unfolded in Germany, where the sale of indulgences attracted the ire of Martin Luther. Indulgences, which were printed on Gutenberg's printing press, were sold to the faithful under the pretense that the buyer would receive less punishment in the afterlife. The funds from the sale of indulgences were used to pay for rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica. Martin Luther wrote the Ninety-Five Theses to decry the practice, and he nailed the document to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517. Although he was later excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, Luther's teachings eventually earned him a great number of followers and led to the formation of the Lutheran faith.

Other religious reform movements followed. In Switzerland, John Calvin instituted a new Protestant faith based on the concept of predestination, or the belief that a person's fate is entirely predetermined by God and cannot be altered. In Scotland, John Knox established the Presbyterian Church. In England, Henry VIII, upset that the pope would not grant him an annulment of his marriage, established the Church of England.

The Protestant Reformation also led to some important changes in the Catholic Church itself. In 1534, the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, was formed by St. Ignatius of Loyola with the aim of supporting education, establishing missions, and stopping the spread of Protestantism. While the Jesuits approached their task in a peaceful manner, other factions of the Roman Catholic Church employed more violent strategies. During the Inquisition, torture was used to force heretics to confess their sins and convert to Roman Catholicism.

As a result of the Protestant Reformation, the political power of monarchies and other governmental states increased as the power of the pope declined. This encouraged the development of nation-states. In addition, religious disputes ignited a series of wars that would strengthen the cultural divide among the emerging European nations.

The Ottoman Empire

As the Byzantine Empire fell into decline, a new power emerged to seize control of the region: the Ottomans. The Ottomans were a tribe that had successfully defeated the Seljuk Turks and laid claim to Anatolia, the region of Asia Minor adjacent to the remains of Byzantium. The Ottomans were particularly forceful about conquering nearby nonMuslim cultures. In 1281, leadership of the Ottomans was assumed by Osman Bey, who was a ghazi, or Muslim warrior. He and his successors expanded the Ottoman Empire to a massive size; the Ottoman Empire remained in existence until 1923.

In 1453, the Ottomans successfully took control of Constantinople and formally ended the Byzantine Empire. The Ottomans rebuilt the fallen capital city of Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul. Expansion reached its maximum extent during the reign of Suleyman I (1520-66).

By 1529, his forces had advanced well into Europe, reaching the nations of Hungary and Austria. Much like the Mongols before them, the Ottomans were stopped at Vienna.

The Ottomans were not the only Islamic empire to emerge during this period, however. The Safavid Empire was a Muslim dynasty that conquered the majority of Persia in a military conflict led by a fourteen- year-old named Ismail Abu al-Muzaffar Safawi. The Safavids and the Ottomans, who were composed of Shia and Sunni Muslims, respectively, were often at odds with each other.

The Mughal Empire (1526-1707) rose to power in India after the fall of the Guptas. For a time, the Mughals worked to unite the people of India, who were largely split along the religious lines of Islam and Hindu. After a time, however, Muslim leaders began persecuting the Hindus, which led to unrest and a divided population. Eventually, the Mughal Empire collapsed under the weight of internal tensions caused by succession disputes.

European Exploration

By the fifteenth century trade activities between the East and West had increased significantly. At the same time, the emerging nations of Europe grew increasingly divided along national lines and began to compete with one another for commercial superiority. This competitive spirit drove many of Europe's leaders to look beyond their own borders for commercial opportunities that could increase wealth and improve international status.

The first steps of the Age of Exploration, as it is often called, were taken by Portugal. Having already established themselves as one of the leading maritime peoples of Europe, the Portuguese were eager to make their mark in the world of trade. At that time, Italy and the Muslims in the Mediterranean still dominated European trade with the East. The Portuguese believed that if they could find an alternative route to the East, they could end this stranglehold on trade. In 1498 their efforts paid off when Vasco da Gama successfully reached India by sailing around the southern tip of Africa and entering the Indian Ocean.

While Portugal traveled south to reach the East, Spain made the bold move of attempting to reach the East by sailing west. In 1492 the Spanish set their sights on finding a route to the East. When the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus suggested that he could reach India by traveling westward across the Atlantic Ocean, Ferdinand, the Spanish king, agreed to finance his journey in the hopes that Spain could reap financially from the potential trade route. Columbus's expedition culminated with his arrival at what he called the West Indies. Thinking that he had landed on some islands just east of India, he searched in vain, during several subsequent expeditions, to find the Indian mainland. In reality, he had landed in the Americas, specifically in the Caribbean nation now known as Haiti. Columbus's discovery introduced Europeans to the New World on the other side of the Atlantic.

These two discoveries made Spain and Portugal the dominant maritime nations in Europe and turned them into rivals. To avoid major disputes, the two nations agreed to the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. This agreement granted Spain exclusive trading rights to all lands discovered in the West, including the Americas, and gave Portugal exclusive trading rights to the East. The treaty was particularly advantageous to the Spanish, who would soon benefit from the massive stores of gold and silver in Mesoamerica.

Spain's entry into Mesoamerica began in 1519, when the conquistador Hernan Cortes arrived in Aztec territory. Although the relationship between the Spanish and the Aztec was initially agreeable, the Spanish eventually chose to seize control of the region. They successfully conquered the Aztec in 1521. The Incan civilization in South America suffered a similar fate when it was conquered by Francisco Pizarro in 1533. The new Spanish colonies in the Americas were operated through the use of the encomienda system, in which settlers could buy land grants that gave them the right to hire local natives to perform labor. This system was often abused, however, and natives were frequently exploited.

The American population also suffered and declined as the result of their susceptibility to various diseases, such as smallpox, brought to their shores by the Europeans.

The need for cheap, resilient labor in the Americas led to the African slave trade. European nations exported various goods to Africa in exchange for slaves. The slaves were brought to the Americas, where they were exchanged for commodities such as sugar and tobacco. This system continued to operate until 1807.

In time, England and France also launched expeditions to the New World. Both claimed territory in North America and established colonial settlements there. By the mid-eighteenth century, the two nations were players on the world stage and, with Spain, became embroiled in a bitter dispute over territorial control. Tensions reached their peak in 1756 with the outbreak of the Seven Years' War. The battle itself was fought on two different fronts. In North America and the Caribbean, the English engaged both France and Spain. In the Indian Ocean, England and Prussia allied themselves in a campaign against the French, the Austrians, and the Russians. After claiming victory in both theaters, England took its place as the world's dominant nation for the following 150 years.

The Rise of Monarchies

Two main types of monarchies emerged in Europe: constitutional monarchies and absolute monarchies. In a constitutional monarchy, the power of the monarch was limited by law. In an absolute monarchy, the monarch's power was unlimited, and the monarch exercised full control over the nation. Many absolute monarchs ruled by divine right, meaning they believed their authority came directly from a higher power.

Spain and France were among the leading nations governed by absolute monarchs. In the sixteenth century, Philip II of Spain led the expansion of the Spanish Empire both in the New World and in Europe, where he controlled Portugal and its assets. In France, Louis XIV, who reigned between 1638 and 1715, viewed himself as the ultimate authority and used his power to levy massive taxes to fund construction of opulent palaces and wage wars abroad. His abuses of power laid the groundwork for future political unrest in France.

In central Europe, various royal lines, such as the Hapsburgs of Austria and the Hohenzollerns of Prussia, ruled during this period. In Russia, powerful monarchs called czars came to power starting in the sixteenth century with the reign of Ivan the Terrible. In 1613, the Romanov family came to power, and they ruled until 1917.

Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment

Europe's dominance on the world stage was also solidified by a number of significant scientific advances during the Scientific Revolution. In the seventeenth century, interest in empirical scientific study grew considerably, and as a result, new research, technologies, and knowledge became available.

Along with these scientific advances came advances in philosophical thought. The philosophy of deism, in particular, became popular during the Scientific Revolution. Deists believed that the role of God in the universe was to set and enforce natural laws. Eventually, the change in philosophical thought that spread across Europe during this period led to the beginning of an intellectual movement called the Enlightenment.

Thinkers of the Enlightenment believed in general that humans were fundamentally good but could be improved through education. They also held that reason, as opposed to religious faith, was the best path to truth. Enlightened thinkers supported the application of scientific principles to society. The ideals of the Enlightenment had a profound effect on the world and played a major role in the development of modern society.

MAJOR FIGURES OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION AND ENLIGHTENMENT

Review Questions

1. Which factor was MOST responsible for the collapse of the Mughal Empire?

A. Enemy invasion

B. Religious unrest

C. Economic distress

D. Peasant revolts

E. Succession disputes

2. The Northern Renaissance MOST differed from the Italian Renaissance in that it

A. failed to significantly emphasize the visual arts

B. placed greater importance on religious devotion

C. largely rejected the concept of humanism

D. did not increase the prevalence of secularism

E. increased dissonance among Christians

3. Who developed and taught the doctrine of predestination?

A. John Knox

B. Martin Luther

C. Ulrich Zwingli

D. John Calvin

E. Thomas More

4. Portugal's MAIN motivation for seeking an alternate route to the East was to

A. establish a direct trading relationship with China

B. compete with Spain and its holdings in the New World

C. end the Italian and Muslim dominance of trade

D. lay claim to all trade rights in the Indian Ocean

E. begin colonizing key areas of Southwest Asia

5. The Seven Years' War was MOST beneficial for which nation?

A. Britain

B. France

C. Russia

D. Spain

E. Italy

Answer Explanations

1. E. The collapse of the Mughal Empire in India was primarily caused by disputes over the line of succession. Although religious unrest between Muslims and Hindus divided the population and destabilized the empire, it was the dispute over the throne that was most damaging.

2. B. Over time, the ideas of the Italian Renaissance made their way into the rest of Europe. In northern Europe, the intellectual ideologies of the Renaissance were combined with the religious devotion of the region's inhabitants. As a result, the Northern Renaissance placed greater emphasis on religious devotion than did the Italian Renaissance.

3. D. The doctrine of predestination was the brainchild of John Calvin, who founded Calvinism. The cornerstone of Calvinism was the concept of predestination, or the belief that each person's fate was predetermined and could not be significantly altered by any earthly means.

4. C. Portugal's primary objective in finding a water route to India around the southern tip of Africa was to break the Italian and Muslim dominance of trade.

5. A. The Seven Years' War benefited Britain more than any other country. During this conflict, the British fought on two separate fronts, taking on the French and Spanish in the Americas and the French, Austrians, and Russians in the Indian Ocean. Ultimately, the British were victorious in both battles and, as a result, became the dominant world power for the following 150 years.