How important were the ideas of the Humanists in weakening the authority of the Church in the years before the Reformation?

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Ollie Plunkett         17/10/09

How important were the ideas of the Humanists in weakening the authority of the Church in the years before the Reformation ?

To answer this question we need to define certain key points and people.  The Humanists in question are the Christian Humanists that were around in this time with people like Erasmus and Thomas More on the front line.  The Christian Humanists believed in going back to old scriptures and texts to rediscover truths about Christianity.  They believed that man could achieve enlightenment through the bible and not going through the Catholic Church to be with God.  There were many followers of this movement including the educated, royalty, religious reformers and those who questioned the Catholic Church structure.  The aims of these people were to educate people straight from the bible, challenge the vulgate and its inaccuracies, abolish the corruption of the Catholic Church and to promote simple piety that reflected medieval scholasticism.  By the “Church” I am referring to the Roman Catholic Church.  The Church had a tremendous amount of authority before the reformation in 1517 and had the power to influence a large percentage of the population and the Humanists did a great deal in ‘weakening the authority’ that the Church had and so were a big part of the Reformation.

I believe that the Humanists played one of the biggest parts in weakening the authority of the church and my main reason for this is the works or Erasmus and most importantly the translation of the Vulgate into Greek in 1516.  I will also discuss other Humanist factors that also helped to weaken the church and other outside factors as well.

Erasmus had written 5 key works in which he conveyed his views on religion, the problems with the Catholic Church and how to live your life properly.  “Adages” was a basic introduction into the life of Humanism and was thought of as a, “Compendium of classical proverbs and quotations”.  It showed the literary style and eloquence of the classical literature, proof of the demand for the intellectual and rhetorical style of classical writers and conveyed the wisdom of the ancients.

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The next was, “Enchiridion” which was a ‘Handbook of the Christian Knight’ and acted as a guide to good living and was aimed at the educated laity of christendom.  It also contained powerful attacks on the role of ritual and ceremony in the Catholic church and other superstitious practices.  It became increasingly popular and was translated into many languages.

Then came, “The Praise of Folly” which was an out and out criticism on the Roman Catholic Church but Erasmus got away with this because he used the persona of ‘Folly’ to narrate so he wouldn’t be tried for heresy.

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