Late Medieval

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Late Medieval Renaissance Europe
The arts and the inventions, the knowledge and
the books, which suddenly became vital at the
time of the Renaissance, had long lain neglected
on the shores of the Dead Sea, which we call the
Middle Ages. It was not their discovery which
caused the Renaissance but it was the
intellectual energy, the spontaneous outburst of
intelligence, which enabled mankind at that
moment to make use of them. The force then
generated still continues, vital and expansive,
in the spirit of the modern world. . . . During
the Middle Ages man had lived enveloped in a
cowl. He had not seen the beauty of the world,
or had seen it only to cross himself and turn
aside, to tell his beads and pray. . . . During
the Middle Ages . . . the plastic arts, like
philosophy, had degenerated into barren and
meaningless scholasticisma frigid reproduction
of lifeless forms copied technically and without
inspiration from debased patterns. . . . A
Short History of the Renaissance in Italy (1893)
Evaluate the historical validity of the
statements above. What are the major claims
being made about the Renaissance Middle Ages?
Do you primarily agree or disagree? Explain.
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Late Medieval Renaissance Europe It is obvious
that some term, descriptive of the change which
began to pass over Europe, has to be adopted.
That of Renaissance . . . is sufficient for the
purpose, though we have to guard against the
tyranny of what is after all a metaphor. We must
not suffer it to lead us into rhetoric about the
deadness and the darkness of the middle ages . .
. Entry on The Renaissance, Encyclopaedia
Britannica, Thirteenth edition (1926)
CONTINUITY Unlike the Roman world, medieval
civilization did not fall. There were no waves
of invading barbarians, no collapse of civic
order and commerce. On the contrary, western
Europe at the close of the Middle Ages
displayed a remarkable vitality and an expansive
spirit. It moved, without a noticeable break,
into modern times. Thus we cannot point to any
historical event or series of events and say,
Here ended the Middle Ages. We might even say
that our present civilization is an extension of
medieval times. . . . A Brief History of the
Western World (1997)
CHANGE Above all, three salient movements of
change brought the Middle Ages to an end. The
first was the Renaissance, or cultural rebirth,
engendered by the rediscovery of classical texts.
. . Second, as we have seen, was the exploration
colonization of the New World, which would
ultimately help end the Mediterranean Seas role
as the center of European prosperity. . . . The
third was the Reformation, which, beginning in
the second decade of the sixteenth century,
challenged the unity of the Roman Catholic
Church. . . . Thus, by 1500, in the waning years
of the Renaissance, the stage had been set for
the trends that would shape early modern
Europe. A History of Modern Europe (1996)
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Renaissance as Revolutionary Change
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
(1860) by Jacob Burckhardt The worldliness,
through which the Renaissance seems to offer so
striking a contrast to the Middle Ages, owed its
first origin to the flood of new thoughts,
purposes, and views which transformed the
medieval conception of nature and man. . . . It
is a lofty necessity of the modern spirit that
this attitude, once gained, can never again be
lost. . . . 474
Burckhardt Emphasized novelty modernity of
Renaissance 1) New secular ideas of government
(modern state) 2) New ways of exploring nature
(science art) 3) New revival of Greco-Roman
classics (humanism) 4) New emphasis on the
individual (individualism) 5) In contrast to the
backward Middle Ages (Dark Ages)
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Renaissance as Continuity It is useless to draw a
sharp line between one period called the 'Middle
Ages' and another called the 'Renaissance'. The
early Renaissance . . . coexisted with that of
late medieval Europe. The European Renaissance
(1998)
To Jacob Burckhardt, the nineteenth-century Swiss
historian and art critic who marked the starting
point of all modern interpretations of the
Renaissance with his great Civilization of the
Renaissance in Italy (1860), the Renaissance was
the spirit of self-discovery and fulfillment, of
recognition of human worth, and a dynamic
outpouring of artistic activity. It was also the
beginning of modern times, for Renaissance Italy
was "the firstborn among the sons of modern
Europe." Since Burckhardt's time, many have
criticized his interpretation. . . . He did
over emphasize the cultural break between the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance and failed to
recognize the equally marked distinctions between
Renaissance society and the modern industrial
world. History, after all, is both continuity
and change. He probably laid too much stress on
individualism and secularism as Renaissance
characteristics and not enough on its deep
religious content. Yet his recognition of the
dynamic nature of Renaissance society and its
cultural grounding in classical literature and
art is well founded and important. The Meaning
of the Renaissance (1996) by De Lamar Jensen
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Renaissance as Continuity
It should be understood, of course, that
recognition of the Renaissance as a period in
history does not imply that it was completely
different from what preceded and what followed
it. Even in a dynamic view of history,
periodization may prove a very useful instrument
if properly handled. The gradual changes brought
about by a continuous historical development may
be in large part changes in degree, but when they
have progressed far enough they become for all
practical purposes changes in kind. To follow a
good humanist precedent and argue from the
analogy of the human body, the gradual growth of
man from childhood to maturity is an unbroken
process, yet there is a recognizable difference
between the man and the child he has been.
Perhaps the analogy, as applied to the Middle
Ages and the Renaissance, is unfortunate in that
it suggests a value judgment that might be
regarded as invidious . . . Wallace K. Ferguson,
The Reinterpretation of the Renaissance (1959)
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Italian Renaissance Economic Political Context
by 1300 growing city-states, 23 cities
(20,000) oligarchies/republics Siena,
Florence, Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Bologna of
male citizens could vote 12, 14th c. Bologna,
2, 15th c. Venice despotic Milan (Visconti--gt
Sforza) Ferrara (Este) Mantua (Gonzaga)
Why were these city-states successful? good
location--gt geographical advantage textile
manufacture --gt wool from England
Spain agricultural surplus --gt grain, wine,
vegetables merchant capitalism --gt erodes
nobilitys power survival of Roman law system
of roads
Venice Genoa -major banking, trade,
shipbuilding insurance -woolens, linen, metals
--gt to the East -cotton, silk, spices, slaves,
other luxuries --gt from the East
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Italian Renaissance Economic Political Context
Florence (cradle of the Italian
Renaissance) -walled city, Arno River, Tuscan
dialect -many schools, high literacy, wealthy
merchants -(1434) de Medici family seizes
political control Cosimo de Medici
(1389-1464) banking textiles patronage of
arts philosophy Lorenzo the Magnificent
(1449-1492)
In the late Middle Ages the Italian peninsula was
the scene of a sudden expansion in banking, trade
and the textile industry. This brought with it
the reconstruction of great cities . . . It
brought extreme wealth to some and it also
altered the fabric of human experience. During
this period the first systematic recovery of
urban life since the days of the Roman Empire
took place. The textile industry required a
considerable workforce to maintain profitable
production, and cities on a large scale sprang up
to serve it. This urban expansion also brought
about a social crisis. Tens of thousands of
impoverished rural labourers flooded towards the
cities--one of the largest of which was Florence
. . . Renaissance (1999) by Andrew
Graham-Dixon