Humanism and the Renaissance.

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Questions to keep in mind?

What is Humanism?

How did Humanism spread?

How did knowledge progress?

How did this affect religion and the religious authorities?

--- Humanism brought MAN to the forefront causing a veritable cultural revolution. Reason and the will to better understand the world fomented progress in the scientific fields. Intellectuals throughout Europe came under the influence of humanism which was disseminated with the invention of the printing press and the guidance of princes. Finally, humanism had a religious impact as well with the protestant reformation and bringing religious pluralism to the west.---

Humanism and the Renaissance

Crises at the the end of the middle ages, i.e. the One Hundred Years War, the plague, famines and the generalised poverty of the peasantry had a lasting impact on the men and women of the middle ages. Educated men, artists and the literate in their inquisitive search for answers began to find the existing pillars of society, i.e. the church, universities and feudalism, sorely lacking in credible answers.

Beginning in the XV and XVI centuries, first in Italy and then throughout Europe, men turned to ancient Greece and Rome for greater understanding. From this arose a veritable intellectual, artistic, philosophical and scientific revolution. This man-centred ‘Renaissance’ attributed great importance to free-thought and marked the beginning of humanism.

Humanism: a cultural revolution

Intellectuals in the XV and XVI centuries began to turn away from the church in an effort to find new answers to the different crises of the XIV century. According to the church, man is guilty of original sin and must accept his misfortune in order to achieve eternal life. In reading latin and greek authors, the humanists discovered a different vision of the world, i.e. a man-centered universe; man remained God’s creation but progress was possible. With humanism fatalism could be overcome, man could master his destiny and transform the world. Mankind was the source of confidence as he was now deemed to be on earth to seek perfection, master nature and overcome narrow thinking.

This cultural revolution combined with the ‘new world’ discoveries in America and Asia provoked sweeping changes in all fields: philosophy, religion and science.

Humanistic ideas benefited from the general improvement in living standards underway in Europe as well as the rise in commerce, the invention of the printing press and efforts of kings and benefactors to promote their spread.

Man at the center of the universe

The printing of ancient texts

In the XIV and at the beginning of the XV century Europe experienced famines, epidemics and wars. For the church these represented God’s punishment. In order to buttress this interpretation the church relied on a very rigid interpretation of sacred texts with virtually no explanation provided.

In response, the humanists sought alternative explanations that might explain man’s place on earth and in his relationship with God. It was in reading ancient greek and latin texts that they were able to call into question the strict religious grounding so prevalent at the time. The return to ancient texts was in itself radical as it challenged the church’s monopoly on knowledge..

When Erasmus retranslated the New Testament into Latin from the original Greek, he broke with the Vulgata: Saint Jerome’s original translation between 391 and 406 AD, further challenging the Church’s official version. In their correspondence humanist thinkers wrote in Latin (the language of the elites) but they advocated translation into the different vernaculars of the day. They hoped that classic texts could reach a wider audience. In 1523 Jacques Lefevre of Etamples produced a French translation of the New Testament

Erasmus (1469? - 1536)

One of the greatest scholar of all-times, he was called Prince of the Humanists and lived at ...

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Erasmus (1469? - 1536)

One of the greatest scholar of all-times, he was called Prince of the Humanists and lived at the time of the Renaissance, a period of profound changes, characterized by the revision of most prevailing concepts and a return to classical sources.

The unparalleled popularity he had acquired made him, in his thirties, an eagerly sought after guest of kings and emperors, popes and cardinals, archbishops and bishops, lords and towns councilors, university heads, in other words, people who moved in the most distinguished circles of the day.

His best known work is the Praise of folly that he wrote on his way back from Italy, a pamphlet mainly directed against the behavior of ruling classes and church dignitaries while exposing the irony of mankind's vanities.

He devoted himself to:

the defense of elegance and purity of Latin, the international and cultural language at the time,
the revision of Christian traditions, fighting for a clearer and more humane approach of religion,
the renewal of the educational system from the publishing of grammars, treatises on children education to the creation of the "Trilingual College" in Leuven.

Some of these texts were known to man throughout the middle ages but they had been recopied by monks in a very approximative and cursory fashion. In fact, many of the passages had been simply omitted. The first task for the humanists was to recover the original meaning of the texts and provide commentary. This involved considerable effort for the humanists. Moreover, they brought other, forgotten texts back into circulation.

2. Antiquity: A model for humanism

a. Owing to the intellectual curiosity of the humanists, the civilisations of antiquity underwent a “Renaissance". Morevover, this was fueled by Greek immigrants who brought with them ancient manuscripts after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

b. They became interested not only in the religious texts but alsothe philosophical, scientific and technical ones as well. They discovered Aristotle’s ideas, Plato’s philosophical thinking and Euclid’s theses. From Cicero they learned about rhetoric. These texts had been forgotten or overlooked throughout the middle ages. It is throught the reappropriation of these texts that humanist thinkers were able to promote free-thinking, the novel concepts of reason and science, even in the reading of the Bible.

c. It was through this encounter with antiquity that humanist writers were able to infuse modern literature with greek terms, e.g. ‘enthusiasm’, or poetry inspired from the classics as well themes from ancient mythology.

Man at the center of the universe: humanist education

a. In their effort to reconcile christianity with classical civilisation, the humanists placed man at the center of the universe. They deemed man to be fundamentally good and, more importantly, capable of betterment and perfection, bringing man closer to God.

b. Education was the key to bring this new vision to life. Through education man could strive to achieve intellectual, physical and moral perfection. Rabelais who saw no bounds to human intellectual achievement believed in acquiring an encyclopedic knowledge. This meant learning the languages of antiquity and acquiring a thorough scientific knowledge. Others such as Montaigne and Erasmus stressed the importance of dialogue between the teacher and his student. Yet all believed in the virtues of education even if this still applied to minority, i.e. nobles and bourgeois, town dwellers. The vast majority of the population remained illiterate with an oral culture.

c. The optimism of humanism was best expressed in the work of Pico de Mirandello, better known as the ‘Prince of the Erudites’. An Italian who spoke all the languages of antiquity and who sought to bridge the ancient civilisations: Greek, Jewish, Christian. Humanist tradition held dear the belief that ‘nothing that is human should remain foreign to man.’

Man’s place in creation

He therefore took man as creature of indeterminate image and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world, addressed him thus: "Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is thine alone nor any function peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam, to the end that according to thy longing and according to thy judgment thou mayest have and possess what abode, what form, and what functions thou thyself shalt desire...The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed by us. Thou, constrained by no limits, in accordance with thine free will, in whose hand we have placed thee, shall ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature. We have set thee at the world's center that thou mayest from thence more easily observe whatever is in the world. We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lowest forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul's judgment, to be reborn in the higher forms, which are divine"

Pico de la Mirandello, On the Dignity of Man

In 1496 Giovanni Pico's devoted nephew Gianfrancesco publishes, among other works by his uncle, the "very elegant" Oration introductory to the Conclusiones, called afterwards On the Dignity of Man. As it is known, the first part of the Oration contains what could be called the original myth of humanism. Pico begins with a praise of man. But in his view this dignity is not based on common places, such as the idea of man endowed of speech and reason, and not even of a man as microcosm, ruler of the universe, but rather on the fact that man, having no fixed attributes, enjoys the free capacity of sharing in the properties of all other beings. Here is Pico's famous description of what happened in the garden of Eden at the moment in which God created man:

The transmission and exchange of ideas had long remained limited by technical constraints. Books were recopied by hand on parchment or on paper. In 1450 Gutenberg invented the printing press. With the advent of movable characters higher quality books could be produced much more quickly at reduced cost and could even include illustrations.

Print shops spread throughout Europe during the latter half of the XV century which allowed for a modern distribution of their ideas. Reknowned printers such as Manuce in Venise, Froben in Basel and Estienne in Paris were themselves humanists and their workshops became poles of intellectual activity where artists, intellectuals, etc could meet. While the first book published was the Bible, books soon touched all disciplines: history, law and science.

While it’s true that books were costly and of little interest to a largely illiterate population with an oral culture, the presses nonetheless fostered a greater circulation of ideas for a growing cultivated audience. Moreover, the presses loosened the grip on society held by more traditional authorities. A more urban society permitted the development of a more secular tradition. These print shops constituted a network of European intellectuals ‘Republique des lettres’ fostering a more open and independent exchange of ideas without religious control.

The Prince and Intellectuals

Through a policy of patronage princes actually sought to promote the circulation of ideas. Princes saw their prestige rise considerably with their support of the arts and literature and thus actively pursued this cultural policy. This allowed humanist thinkers to survive without pursuing university careers as they had the option of becoming advisers of sovereigns and participating actively in court life. It was Francois Irst under the advice of Guillaume Bude who founded the College des Lecteurs Royaux (College de France). The college offered classes in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and other oriental languages as well as mathematics.

It was this connection to the corridors of power and influence that led humanists to become more interested in politics. In 1516 Erasmus wrote in the the Institution of a Christian Prince inviting the Spanish king Charles V to base his rule on peace and the love of his subjects. In contrast, Machiavelli wrote the Prince in 1513 in which he stated that the ‘ends justify the means’ and that ‘all means are legitimate in trying to maintain power.’ Given a climate of religious wars and political struggles, humanists sought to strengthen the authority of the state.

Science and World Discovery

Intellectual curiosity and a keen critical sense propelled humanists into the research of manifold scientific disciplines.

Towards a better, more scientific understanding of man.

Humanists didn’t set out to further the scientific disciplines. However their pursuit of truth and their highly developed curiousity combined with the discovery of ancient texts fostered a blossoming in the sciences. In order to better understand the world they applied the basics of scientific research, i.e. experimentation.

Developments in medecine and surgery were perhaps the most visible examples of this budding scientific curiosity. In 1543 Andre Vesale published his treatise on anatomy entitled, The Structure of the Human Body. Michel Servet was able to demonstrate that blood ran from the heart to the lungs. Discoveries such as these allowed the surgeon Ambroise Pare to be the first to practice of joining arteries in order to stop hemoraging.

2. Understanding the Universe

Greek and Arab texts/manuals kindled great interest in mathematics. Italian Jerome Cardan was then able to solve third degree equations in 1545 while the Frenchman Francois Viete first began using letters in order to symbolise known and unknown quantities in 1591.

Astronomy also experienced a revolution of sorts. Until then the church had always represented the earth as the center of the universe. According to the Greek Ptolemy earth was the center of divine creation. In 1543 the Pole Nicholas Copernic expressed an heliocentric view of the world in his book, The Revolution of Celestial Spheres, where he demonstrated that the earth revolved around the sun. This allowed astronomy and/or cosmology (the study of the universe) to develop as a science apart from theology.

A New Vision of the World

Scientific progress and the wider questioning of church teachings went hand in hand with the will to explore the world. In pursuing the novel idea of a round/spherical world, Christopher Columbus set out on a westwards journey in search of India/China. He didn’t make it to India but he did find the Antilles in 1492.

New technology, i.e. better boat design and the astrolabe, led to many more voyages and discoveries. Magellan was able to confirm that the earth was in fact round/spherical with his voyage around the world between 1519 and 1522 which further stimulated cartography and new ways of representing the world.

Of course these discoveries brought Europeans into contact with hitherto unknown peoples. These peoples became the subject of study and added new knowledge to the Greek and Arab heritage upon which the Christian west was founded. These new ideas often met resistance from the church, sorcery and astrology.