Unit 1 Study Guide

 The Renaissance and Reformation

o Georgio Vasari
 16th century painter
 first to use the word “renaissance”
 Renaissance = rebirth
o Modern notion of individualism was born during the Renaissance

o Humanism
 Program of study including rhetoric and literature, based on what
students in the classical world would have studied
 Petrarch—father of humanism
 Became involved with works of Cicero
 “Civic Humanists” viewed Cicero’s involvement in political causes
as justification to use their own classical education for the public
good
 Belief that ideals such as beauty or turuth exist beyond our ability
to reason
o The Northern Renaissance
 Christian Humanists criticized the Church
 Erasmus and Sir Thomas More
 Erasmus translated the New Testament and played a
major role in the sixteenth-century movement to better
understand the life of the early Christians
o Erasmus believed in reforming the Church not
abandoning it
 Thomas More
o Wrote Utopia (nowhere)
o Critical of many aspects of contemporary society
and sought to depict a civilzation in which political
and economic injustices were limited by having all
property held in common
 The Gutenberg Printing Press introduced movable type to Europe
o The Protestant Reformation
 Movement which resulted in the great split in Western
Christendom, which dethroned the pope as the single religious
authority in Europe
 The humanism of the renaissance led individuals to question
certain practices such as the efficacy of religious relics
o Problems Facing the Church on the Eve of the Reformation
 o John Wycliffe
 Questioned the worldly wealth of the church, the miracle of
transubstantiation, the teachers of penacnce, and in the worldly
wealth of the church
o Jan Hus
 Led a revolt that combined religious and nationalistic elements
 Authority of the bible and not of the church
 Council of Constance—Hus burned at the stake
o Martin Luther
 Selling of indulgences was a practice that began during the time of
the Crusades
 Indulgences released the buyer from purgatory
o Peace of Augsburg
 Granted legal recognition of Lutheranism in those territories rule
by a Lutheran ruler, while a Catholic ruler ensured that the
territory remained Catholic
o Anabaptists
 Denied the idea of infant baptism
o Ulrich Zwingli + John Calvin
 Zwingli—strict sacramentarian in that he denied all the
sacraments
 Concerned with this world and called for social reform
 John Calvin—argued that grace was bestowed on relatively few
individuals and the rest were going to hell!
 Calvinism became the established church in Scotland while
in France the Calvinists became known as the Huguenots
o The Counter-Reformation
 Also known as the Catholic Reformation
 Taking steps to counteract some of the successes of the
Protestants
 Council of Trent—dominated by the papacy, enhanced the
church’s power
 Placed limits on the selling of church offices
 Refused to concede to any point of the Protestants
 Society of Jesus
 Organized by Ignatius of Loyola
 Ignatius though that even if the Bible didn’t exist, there
was still the spirit
 The Age of Expansion and the Rise of Monarchical States
o Spain
 Spanish Inquisition—expulsion of Jews and Moors from Spain
 Also trying to expel any Protestants
  Spain controlled Italy, parts of the Netherlands and the New
World
 Spain launches the Armada to combat the revolts in the
Netherlands and to also move on to dethrone Queen Elizabeth
 Dethrone Elizabeth and instate Mary Stuart as queen
because she was Catholic
o The Holy Roman Empire
 Peace of Augsburg
 Signified the end of the religious wars in the time of
Charles V, who agreed to adhere to the bsic principle that
the prince decides the religion of the territory
o Did not grant recognition to Calvinists
 The Thirty Years War
 Began in Bohemia
 King Ferdinand was intolerant towards Protestants
 Protestant rulers were concerned that the traditional
constitution of the Holy Roman Empire had been
dramatically altered when the Palatinates’ electoral vote
was given to Bavaria
 Edict of Restitution—outlawed Calvinism in the empire
and require Lutherans to turn over all property
o Led to king of Sweden to get involved
o Swedes beat back the Habsburgs until their leader
died
 The Peace of Westphalia
o Marked the end of the war
o Holy Roman Empire maintained its numerous
political divisions and ensured that the Emperor
would remain an ineffectual force within German
politics
o Germany never really recovered from this until the
19th century
o France
 Henry of Navarre
 Sought to balance out the power of the aristocratic
families to protect Catherine de Medici’s sons
 Huguenot aristocracy
 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre
 20,000 Huguenots killed all throughout France
 Navarre promised to return to Catholicism
 Cardinal Richelieu
 Defeated the Huguenots and took away many of the
military and political privileges given to them by the Edict
of Nantes (which gave Huguenots freedom of worship and
assembly as well as the right to maintain fortified towns
for their protection)