Back to Index of Lecture Notes Europe: Northern Renaissance I. Recap of the Renaissance

• A. General Characteristics
  • 1. love of antiquity
  • 2. humanistic focus
  • 3. secular
  • 4. naturalistic (wanting to show nature as it is)
  • 5. both practical and perfectionist
  • 6. Italian elite culture
• B. How did it change in Italy?
  • 1. from Plutarch to Machiavelli
  • 2. secular power becomes focus
  • 3. cemented centralized political control (city-states)

II. Medieval Christianity

• A. Scholasticism (define again)
  • 1. a method of theology - logical analysis of Biblical texts
  • 2. a means by which to understand God, to properly interpret Bible
  • 3. leads to worry about heresy (incorrect teaching)
• B. Internationalism (one Church the same throughout the West)
• C. Ritualistic
  • 1. Use of Latin
  • 2. actions to help save your soul
  • 3. community cohesiveness through liturgical ritual
  • 4. emphasis on outward manifestations of faith
  • 5. well-fitted to an active peasant cohort
• E. Pope as a secular/spiritual leader
  • 1. has worldly concerns
  • 2. Role as political leader disturbing to many
• F. Growing dissatisfaction with these traits in Catholocism

III. The Northern / Christian Renaissance antecedents

• A. Later renaissance from Italy
• B. Problems of Late Middle Ages passing
  • 1. plague is endemic, not epidemic
  • 2. land has rested, food crops better
  • 3. politically less volatile than before
  • 4. wars move to Italy
• C. New geographic centers
  • 1. Cosmopolitan regions revive (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
  • 2. Centers of learning move northward again
• D. Northern Renaissance has its roots in printing
  • 1. First printed Bible in 1445-50 (Gutenburg)
  • 2. Interest in recovering ancient texts (as in Italy)
  • 3. Moveable type--this was the real invention
    • a. quickly able to reproduce texts
    • b. do so without errors from copyists
    • c. books much cheaper to produce than manuscripts
  • 4. importance today of such books--incanabulae

IV. Defining Christian Humanism

• A. Mixing Renaissance Humanism with Christianity
  • 1. civic (Italian Renaissance): "what you need to live well"
  • 2. Christian (Northern): "what you need to be saved"
  • 3. focus is still, however, on the person, on the "you"
  • 4. creates the beginning of a religious reformation
• B. How is it Humanistic?
  • 1. the "ancients" are the early Church, the Bible
  • 2. Romans, Greeks hold less sway than Bible, Epistles
  • 3. interest in the liberal arts (poetry, art, nature)
  • 4. harmony, moderation
  • 5. creates the model for Christian Liberal Arts education
  • 6. Above all, emphasis on the duty of individual to understand salvation, Bible, God
• C. Ethics instead of Scholasticism
  • 1. again, focus on the individual
  • 2. what can the person do in society to be saved?
  • 3. salvation, therefore in worldly work
  • 4. Reason for the Christian human condition
    • a. less interest in heresy
    • b. use of reason to create piety, not philosophy
• D. Action vs. Contemplation
  • 1. Goal: Reform Xtianity thru morals
  • 2. Goal: Reform Church through ancient simplicity
  • 3. Goal: Prune the Church to make it bear better fruit
  • 4. Highly Optimistic
• E. Piety intsead of ritual
  • 1. Act out your faith instead of acting out rituals
  • 2. individualist ideas need less communitarian rituals
  • 3. rituals had become too much, needed pruning
  • 4. would result in pure simplicity of ancient church

V. The "New Man" of the Northern Renaissance--Erasmus (1466-1536)

• A. Stayed within church--reformer not revolutionary
• B. Interested in personal piety
  • 1. didn't like monasteries
  • 2. didn't like the trade-economy of the Netherlands
  • 3. moved about as an international scholar, itinerant
• C. Unwilling to accept fanaticism: In Praise of Folly
• D. Becomes advocate of Bible in the original & vernacular
  • 1. Middle Ages depended on Latin vulgate Bible
  • 2. Erasmus emphasizes use of both original (Greek&Hebrew) and vernacular
  • 3. Place of printing
    • a. Bible could be widely accessible
    • b. Bible could be understood in the vernacular
    • c. lead to a personal (human) understanding
    • d. lead to a personal (human) piety
    • e. lead away from ritual towards the Bible
• E. Erasmus as a typical figure of Northern Renaissance
  • 1. highly optimistic
  • 2. an ethicist not a philosopher
  • 3. "worldly" while being religious
  • 4. interested in both ancient texts and vernacular
  • 5. interested in human focus for reform of the church
  • 6. somehow both practical and a perfectionist

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