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Euro Essay#1
Euro Essay#1
society flourish. The largest and possibly most important movement of the Renaissance was
humanism. Humanism is considered the move towards cultural and educational reform. This
movement was accepted and adopted by scholars, writers and civic leaders. Humanism served to
shift society's view of individuals from just members of a population to important and
worthwhile beings while implementing secular viewpoints. There was even a branch of
humanism that accounted for religious beliefs called Christian Humanism. As society became
The first change humanism evoked was the pressure on the individual to become more
secular. Secularism is the idea that an individual should not strive to succeed in the afterlife but
to enjoy life now and to take pleasure in more material objects. “This changed happened because
of the decrease in feelings of medieval supernaturalism and as human interests became more
prominent”[ CITATION Kre88 \l 1033 ] .Secularism affected everything from literature to faith and
reliance on the church. This change likely occurred because of the study of the pagan classics
which helped to stimulate the movement towards a secular society. When humanists read the
works of the Greeks and Romans who supported the idea of secularism they were taken by what
Augustine branded the City of Man (also known as the material world). “Pagan literature, with
its emotional and intellectual affinity to the new world view, accelerated the existing drift toward
secularism”[ CITATION Kre88 \l 1033 ]. These feeling of secularism also led artists and writers to
become less interested with religious icons and more interested with everyday things.
Humanistic secularism reached the peak of its influence with Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527),
(1466-1536), who was one of the greatest humanists of his time, occupied a position midway
between extreme piety and frank secularism[ CITATION Kre88 \l 1033 ]. Secularism also led these
people as well as many other writers to begin writing in the vernacular so that the common
person would be able to understand it and to begin writing about things not concerning the
church.
Another result of the spread of Renaissance humanism was the emphasis put on the
capabilities of an individual and how one could better oneself. “Humanism placed importance in
the individual’s responsibilities of citizenship and leadership, including the participation in the
political process in the community. The general humanistic belief was that the scholastic type of
education did not instill a respect for public duty”[ CITATION Smi04 \l 1033 ]. The first step
towards adopting the humanist’s ways was to discard the Christian ways of thinking. Then, as a
result of this idea of dropping the ways of Christian thinking, many people in the upper class of
society came to dislike the humanism movement because they got most of their political and
social status thru the church, often by simony. Others however embraced this idea, “These
people tended to object to the traditional education system that was monopolized by the clergy
and effectively excluded them. They could see that the new humanism could include
them”[ CITATION Smi04 \l 1033 ] and this gave them an opportunity to move up in society. In
some ways, the humanism movement differed from the Renaissance as a whole. People who
adopted humanism “ relied on flexible thinking” and “being open to all of the possibilities of life
and less concerned with the thinking of the past (antiquity)”[ CITATION Smi04 \l 1033 ]. This also
meant that unlike many other Renaissance thinkers and artists, some groups of humanists did not
go back and study ancient Greek and Roman works. This is not to say that the great Greek and
Roman philosophers like Plato and Aristotle were not well respected and admired by other
groups of humanists. In fact, “the Florentine Academy, during the late 15th century took a more
serious study of Plato’s works. They hoped that Plato would be the guide for new Western
humanists thought like Plato’s student Aristotle had been for the traditional scholastic
thinkers”[ CITATION Smi04 \l 1033 ]. “Humanist educators trained their pupils not for the church or
the scholar’s study, or the university lecture hall but for active participation in the life of the city
or court”[ CITATION Mar \l 1033 ]. As a result of these teaching arose a new form of humanism
called Social or civic humanism. “Social or civic humanism rose out of the republican ideology
of Florence at the beginning of the fifteenth century. It sought to create citizens capable of
participating in the civic life of their community by placing central emphasis on human
autonomy”[ CITATION Def04 \l 1033 ]. This caused people to be more dependent on themselves as
well as free thinking and educated in their decision making instead of following the church. One
example of these teachings and works influencing people is Castiglione’s book called The
Courtier. This book outline how a perfect courtier (and in the last portion, a lady) should act and
at what lengths a person should be educated. This book is so influential it was read even a
One of the most foreseeable problems with the rise of humanism is the response of the
Catholic Church. One would think that with all the liberal ideas floating around, the people who
rely on the church to gain power and status would feel threatened. Then, in turn they would use
their power in order to prosecute the humanists. This sort of thing never really occurred because
the humanists knew that they would likely be prosecuted for their ideals and as a result formed or
created a new branch of humanism called Christian humanism. This form of humanism
combined the study of the great Greek and Roman works with Christian values. One such
occurrence of this blending was seen in the work The Epicurean, by Erasmus. This was
manageable because “Ethics was taught independently of theology, and the authority of the
Church was tacitly transferred to the reasoning logic of the educated individual”[ CITATION
Def04 \l 1033 ]. This affected the role of an individual in society because these people saw that
they had the freedom to do what they wanted and that they could move up and down the moral
scale. Christian Humanists also acknowledged that God and the angels were at the top, and Satan
was at the bottom. So in other words, they basically remained loyal to their Christian beliefs
By the end of the Renaissance, humanism had greatly impacted many aspects of society.
Humanism gained large acceptance during the Renaissance from many groups of people.
Humanism helped to change the role of an individual in society. Humanism emphasized the
thinking. Humanism had many branches where almost anyone could fit in including members of
the church in the area of Christian Humanism. Humanism was one of the most powerful and
Works Cited
Aston, Margaret. The Panorama of the Renaissance. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1996.
Schomp, Virginia. The Italian Renaissance. New York: Benchmark Books, 2003.
Smith, Ray. The Humanism of the Renaissance. 15 December 2004. 15 October 2010 <http://www.all-
about-renaissance-faires.com/renaissance_info/renaissance_and_humanism.htm>.