Wiesner-Hanks • Crowston • Perry • McKay

A History of
Western Society
Thirteenth Edition
CHAPTER 12
European Society in the Age
of the Renaissance
1350–1550
Copyright © 2020 by BFW High School Publishers
Distributed by BFW High School Publishers strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.
 I. How did political and economic
developments in Italy shape the
Renaissance?
A. Trade and Prosperity
1. The Renaissance
2. Venice grown rich through overseas trade
3. Advances in shipbuilding
4. Florence, a wealthy commercial leader
5. Florence merchants loaned and invested money
 I. How did political and economic
developments in Italy shape the
Renaissance?
A. Trade and Prosperity
6. Florence contributed to city’s economic growth
7. Florence economic structure remained stable
8. People in Florence lived a comfortable life
9. People enjoyed life more
 I. How did political and economic
developments in Italy shape the
Renaissance?
B. Communes and Republics of Northern Italy
1. Communes formed by merchant guilds
2. Local nobles moved into cities
3. Merger of northern Italian nobility and the
commercial elite; powerful oligarchy
4. Disenfranchisement of the popolo
5. Establishment of republican governments
 I. How did political and economic
developments in Italy shape the
Renaissance?
B. Communes and Republics of Northern Italy
6. Condottieri reestablished the merchant oligarchies
7. Cities in Italy became signori
8. Cities transformed their households into courts
9. Ceremonies
10. Displays of wealth later copied by rules of nation-
states
 I. How did political and economic
developments in Italy shape the
Renaissance?
C. City-States and the Balance of Power
1. Individual city-states
2. Balance of power between Italian states
3. Venice was ran as an oligarchy
4. Milan was ruled by the Sforza family
5. Florence was controlled by the Medici banking
family
 I. How did political and economic
developments in Italy shape the
Renaissance?
C. City-States and the Balance of Power
6. Popes were members of powerful families
7. Naples was under control of the King of Aragon
8. Balance of power
9. Establishment of permanent embassies
10. King Charles VIII invaded Italy in 1494
 I. How did political and economic
developments in Italy shape the
Renaissance?
C. City-States and the Balance of Power
11. Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498)
12. Savonarola leader of new Florentine republic
13. Medici returned to rule Florence
14. The Habsburg-Valois wars
15. Continual warfare in Italy
16. Centuries of outside invasions
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
A. Humanism
1. Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574)
2. Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374)
3. Petrarch advocated for recovery of classical
texts
4. Proposed young men to study ancient Roman
authors
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
Change
A. Humanism
5. Studia humanitates, “liberal arts”
6. Humanism contained implicit philosophy
7. Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.)
8. Leonardo Bruni (1374–1444
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
A. Humanism
9. Bruni divided history in ancient, medieval, and
modern
10. Plato
11. Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464), Marsilio Ficino
(1433–1499)
12. The Platonic ideal
13. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494)
14. Renaissance thinkers believed on man’s
divinely nature
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
A. Humanism
15. Virtù
16. The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects
17. Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472)
18. The Ideal country house
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
B. Education
1. Studying classics would give career skills
2. Humanist education for the public good
3. Opened schools and academies in cities
4. Humanist education became standard of
education
5. Disagreed about education for women
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
B. Education
6. Academies were not open to women
7. Baldassare Castiglione’s The Courtier (1528).
8. Educated man should speak and write
9. Perfect court lady should be educated and artful
10. The Courtier translated into most European
languages
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
C. Political Thought
1. Humanist wrote biographies
2. Plato’s philosopher-king
3. Educated men should be active in political
affairs
4. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527).
5. The Prince (1513),
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
C. Political Thought
6. Cesare Borgia (1475?–1507),
7. Borgia’s state collapsed
8. “Machiavellian”
9. Machiavelli argued governments should be
assessed by their performance
10. Scholars see Machiavelli as realistic, cynical,
ironic
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
D. Christian Humanism
1. Northern humanist wanted to reform the church
2. Best elements of classical and Christian
cultures should be combined
3. Thomas More (1478-1535), Utopia (1516)
4. Poverty and hunger solved by government
5. Differing opinions of Utopia
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
D. Christian Humanism
6. Desiderius Erasmus (1466?–1536)
7. The Praise of Folly (1509)
8. Education in the Bible and “philosophy of Christ”
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
E. The Printed Word
1. Petrarch’s ideas spread by hand copying,
Erasmus’s ideas spread through print
2. Printing with movable metal type developed in
Germany in the 1440s
3. Johann Gutenberg
4. Built racks
5. Printing revolution
6. Expanding market for reading materials
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
E. The Printed Word
7. 8 and 20 million books were printed in Europe
8. Radically transformed Europe’s public and
private life
9. Printers had connections to politics, arts
10. Printing gave thousands of people identical
books
11. Printing materials created groups, organization
 II. What new ideas were
associated with the Renaissance?
E. The Printed Word
12. Government and church used printing
13. Certain books and authors were prohibited
14. Printing increased literacy of laypeople
15. Printers produced anything that would sell
16. Books were read aloud to people who can’t
read
 III. How did art reflect new
Renaissance ideals?
A. Patronage and Power
1. Creative painting, architecture, and sculpture
2. Wealth demonstrated through works of art
3. Art used to show social status and wealth
4. Patrons involvement varied
 III. How did art reflect new
Renaissance ideals?
A. Patronage and Power
5. Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to
paint the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel (1508)
6. Art reveals patterns of consumption
7. Embroidered tablecloths, wall tapestries,
paintings represented wealth
 III. How did art reflect new
Renaissance ideals?
B. Changing Artistic Styles
1. Religious topics popular in Renaissance art
2. The individual portrait
3. Giotto (1276–1337)
4. Piero della Francesca (1420–1492) and Andrea
Mantegna (1430/31–1506)
5. Donatello (1386 – 1466
 III. How did art reflect new
Renaissance ideals?
B. Changing Artistic Styles
6. Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446)
7. Art in northern Europe more religious
8. Rogier van der Weden (1399/1400 – 1464) and
Jan van Eyck (1366 – 1441)
9. Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg
10. Center of art shifted from Florence to Rome
11. Pietà, Moses and the dome for Saint Peter’s
12. Raphael Sanzio (1483 – 1520)
13. Titian (1490 – 1576), “mannerism”
 III. How did art reflect new
Renaissance ideals?
C. The Renaissance Artist
1. Artists “rare men of genius”
2. Art was the deliberate creation of personality
3. Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci
4. Artists expected to be well trained
5. Artists spent years copying drawings
6. Informal practice groups later turned into formal
“academies”
7. Gendered notion of artistic genius
 III. How did art reflect new
Renaissance ideals?
C. The Renaissance Artist
8. Women were not allowed to study male nude
9. Male-only artistic workshops
10. Most scholars and artists came from rich
families
 IV. What were the key social
hierarchies in Renaissance
Europe?
A. Race and Slavery
1. “Race,” “people,” and “nation” interchangeable
2. Merchants seized Africans to sell into slavery
3. Local authorities offered no protection
4. Portuguese sailors brought Africans to
Mediterranean markets
5. Mid-sixteenth century, blacks made up 10
percent of Portuguese population
6. Black servants were sought after in northern
Italy
 IV. What were the key social
hierarchies in Renaissance
Europe?
A. Race and Slavery
7. Slaves supplemented labor force
8. Europeans saw Africa as a remote place
9. Slave trade reinforced negative perceptions of
Africans
 IV. What were the key social
hierarchies in Renaissance
Europe?
B. Wealth and the Nobility
1. Wealth based hierarchy emerged
2. Hierarchy of wealth
3. Poor nobles had higher status than wealthy
commoners
4. Nobility integrated the new social elite of wealth
5. Social status also linked to honor in war and
occupations
6. Sumptuary laws
 IV. What were the key social
hierarchies in Renaissance
Europe?
C. Gender Roles
1. Querelle des femmes
2. Mysonigist critiques prompted authors to defend
women
3. Christine de Pizan
4. Printing press spurred debate about women
5. Debate about female rulers
 IV. What were the key social
hierarchies in Renaissance
Europe?
C. Gender Roles
7. No successful rebellions against female rulers
7. Gender roles for men and women
8.“True” men were married heads of household
9. Women were “married or to be married”
10. Disorder in the gender hierarchy was linked
with social upheaval and threatening
11. Gender hierarchy viewed as the most “natural”
social hierarchy
 V. How did nation-states develop
in this period?
A. France
1. Charles VIII (r. 1422 – 1461)
2. Expelled English, reorganized royal council,
strengthened royal finances
3. Created the first permanent royal army
4. Louis XI (r. 1461 – 1483)
5. Marriage of Louis XII (r. 1498 – 1515) to Anne of
Brittany further enlarged the state of France
6. The Concordat of Bologna in 1516
 V. How did nation-states develop
in this period?
B. England
1. Henry IV (r. 1399 – 1413)
2. Wars of the Roses
3. Machiavellian methods
4. Foreign diplomacy
5. Henry VII’s royal council
6. The Court of Star Chamber
7. Henry VII died in 1509
 V. How did nation-states develop
in this period?
C. Spain
1. Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon
2. Spain exist as a loose confederation
3. Curbed aristocratic power
4. Right to appoint bishops
5. Expanded territories
6. Conclusion of Reconquista
 V. How did nation-states develop
in this period?
C. Spain
7. Spanish people saw Jews as threats
8. Strong resentment of Jewish influence and
wealth
9. Anti- Semitic ideologies swept the towns of Spain
10. Converters or New Christians held high power
11. Aristocrats resented financial dependence
12. 1478 Inquisition to attack Jews
 V. How did nation-states develop
in this period?
C. Spain
13. Officials claimed that Jews could never be true
Christians
14. “Purity of blood” laws
15. All practicing Jews expelled from Spain (1492)
16. Muslims in Granada were forcibly baptized
 V. How did nation-states develop
in this period?
C. Spain
17. Religious orthodoxy and purity of blood
18. Charles V (r. 1519–1556)
19. Portugal joined to the Spanish crown in 1580