The printing press was probably the most important advance in technology. Europeans first used movable metal type to print a book. On small pieces of metal they engraved single letters of the alphabet. These could then be arranged and rearranged to form words and sentences. Johan Gutenberg is usually given credit for the first book printed a copy of the Bible. By the 1500's printing presses where fairly well spread. The printing press had many effects on the world. First of all, it made books much easier to come by, which made them cheaper. That meant common people could afford them. As a result literacy became more widespread, in contrast to the Middle Ages where usually monks and church officials were the only able to read. Secondly, since many more people were able to read, they wanted to read subjects other than religious or scientific work. So books on other subjects were published as well. Also many books were published in languages other than Latin, such as English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Italian. A third effect was that scholars had better access to one another’s work. They could also read the great works of the ancient and medieval periods.
The Renaissance also had an effect on the general society. Many people became interested in politics. Also, people became interested in the world outside of their towns. Many became explorers, merchants, and mapmakers. Religion especially changed during the Renaissance. In the Middle ages people were primarily concerned with serving the church and getting to heaven. But the increase in arts and education gave people something to look forward to, and a life worth living. So in turn, people based their lives around various other things instead of the church. Because of the increase in literacy people learned that the Catholic Church only told the people what they wanted them to hear. This caused many people to break away from the church and form Protestant religions.
The Renaissance led to such literary pioneers as Niccolò Machiavelli. His work, ‘The Prince’, gave detailed instructions as to what qualities a perfect leader must possess and how to use these qualities. Machiavelli presented a thorough account of a perfect prince and how he achieved and maintained power. Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ is a classic literary example of Renaissance writing in the ideas it conveys and how it conveys them.
Political theory plays an important theme during any historical period and the Renaissance was no exception. In comparison to the Renaissance, medieval political theory stressed the way government ought to be and high Christian standards were set for a ruler’s conduct. Good medieval governments were supposed to provide justice, law, and order. The Renaissance work The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli maintained that people should not only be concerned about how the government was supposed to be run, but how it actually was run as well. Machiavelli’s theories embraced the idea that leaders’ actions cannot be restricted by ethics, but the most effective approach should be implemented regardless of its morality. The Renaissance marked the beginning of an age where rulers utilized aggressive methods to sustain and expand their governments. To illustrate the lengths leaders should go to preserve their kingdom was when Machiavelli stated “he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it” (Machiavelli 17). Machiavellian thought is now known as the end justifies the means.
Machiavelli proclaimed that the purpose of the prince was to retain their power and keep their kingdoms unified. The prince was not meant to be a model of virtue or code of behavior for his people, but simply to rule effectively. He recognized the imperfect state of humanity and chose to make the most of it by relating his ideas about the imperfect world. Machiavelli believed that for the good of the state, sometimes an effective prince had to abandon his morals at the door and do evil instead of good to get the job done. Machiavelli decreed that a ruler should ideally be both feared and loved, but it was difficult to attain both. He comes to the conclusion that the best kind of prince was mostly liberal, but mean in some instances. A prince who does not exhibit some meanness will eventually come to ruin because he does not hold the respect of the people. The other main theme of Machiavelli’s Prince was in regards to the inefficiencies revolving around social orders involving religion. The role of the Church played an important role because it was the definitive authority of Europe, with the pope as the head of the Church and therefore the ruler of Europe. Machiavelli was vehemently opposed to the control the Church possessed of state affairs. In fact, he believed the Church to be one of the prince’s prime opponents. Machiavelli declares the Church to be a strong entity but the short lives of the pope tend to slow down any attempts at gaining power for the state. Not only that but the foundation of a papacy allows officials to be “secure and happy” because “they are ruled by a higher power” (Machiavelli 36). This meat that since they are ordained by God they can feel free to neglect their subjects because they know they cannot lose their princely status. The state does not benefit from the Church’s relationship to the State because of the uncertainty of this relationship. Machiavelli attempted to adapt modern thought when he attacked the idea that chance, or fortune, controlled the fate of a prince. He acknowledged that luck does in fact play a part in the affairs of men, but he maintained that human free will also had strong implications. He asserted, “I think it may be true that fortune determines one half of our actions, but that, even so, she leaves us to control the other half” (Machiavelli 74). Machiavelli’s logic clearly signified a modern notion of humankind, although giving luck half of the control over our lives may seem a little liberal. Free will was hardly recognized in God’s plan. God and fate were considered to be the only sources of human action. Even though Machiavelli clearly supported Renaissance ideas in this instance, he still admits that a successful prince can easily be ruined if not prepared for whatever luck may have in store for him. Machiavelli’s The Prince successfully expressed many ideas of the Renaissance. He detailed how the government should work and what past leaders had done to lead to their downfall. He emphasized the problems of an ecclesiastical government and how the prince should do everything in his power to suppress the Church and the pope for the good of the State. Machiavellian ideas also coincided with that of other Renaissance authors in that it was necessary for the prince to be both feared and loved.
At the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, the bubonic plague claimed half of the population of Europe. Also known as the “Black Death,” the plague spread most quickly through cities where people were in close contact with one another. The only way to avoid this was to move away from the cities, into the countries. Unfortunately, the only people that had the ability to do this were those with money, so many of the peasants and lower-class citizens suffered. This incredible decrease in population brought a struggle to the economy, and a depression quickly resulted. Merchants had less people to sell or trade their goods to, causing an excess build up of goods that these trades people could do nothing with, except suffer the financial loss. Because the merchants were losing money, those businessmen that needed merchants for their source of income, like bankers, suppliers, and shippers, also lost money. As incidence of the plague decreased in the late fifteenth century, populations swelled, creating a new demand for goods and services. As bankers, merchants, and trades people once again had a market for their goods and services, a new middle class, which was almost non-existent during the Middle Ages, began to emerge (Marszalek, 2001).
But even with a growing middle-class, very little women had strong roles in the community. A woman could be seen in the market, selling goods for her family, or seen shopping in the market if she was a wealthy woman. A woman banker was unheard of, which can also be due to the lack of education that women received. So throughout the cities and towns, women were to tend to the children and take care of the household, but only depending on their status in the community. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, women had more economic and political power than they did in the Renaissance period. It is argued that because of this lack of power, the term Renaissance does not necessarily apply to women, and it was a title that was given to them after the fact. They, during the actual times, were not given the same opportunities as men, and they lost many of their privileges. Women still had the ability to assume power in government, but it was not based on their ability to lead; it was more of an inheritance. If a woman was expected to lead, then and only then was she allowed to learn about hunting and other "unbecoming" skills. But the everyday woman was to learn how to act in society. There were even publications by various authors, who specifically stated the things that women should and should not be allowed to do (Kelly, 1999).
The structure of the community during the Middle Ages was feudalistic. The nobles of the town protected the King, and in return they were given land. The peasants worked the land for the nobles, and from the nobles they received protection and their own small parcels of land. They worked from sunup to sundown, but even the nobles had few creature comforts. In feudal cities, where there was a small middle-class population, life was a little easier and individuals had the freedom to pursue whatever trade or industry they liked. When there was less and less threat of any barbaric attacks, many of the people moved out the country they were living in for protection, and looked for more opportunity in the towns and cities, desiring a more profitable way of life. As the fortunes of merchants, bankers, and tradesmen improved, they had more than enough money to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter. They began to desire larger, more luxurious homes, fine art for these residences, elaborate clothing to show off their wealth in public, and exotic foods to eat. These desires of the middle-class stimulated the economy (Kuehn, 1996).
The middle-class population also had leisure time to spend on education and entertainment. In fact, education was essential for many middle-class professions. Bankers and accountants needed to understand arithmetic. Those trading with other countries needed knowledge of foreign currencies and languages. Reading was essential for anyone who needed to understand a contract. In their leisure time, middle-class men and women enjoyed such pastimes as reading for pleasure, learning to play musical instruments, and studying a variety of topics unrelated to their businesses. Although women read, educated women were a cause for discomfort, because women were supposed to stay within the confines of the home. The women were to be the ones to stay silent. If they became educated and spoke out about what they knew, it made for a difficult situation. The few outspoken and intelligent women who stepped out of their gender-based role were ridiculed and tormented for being belligerent or disorderly. The education that women did receive went from teachings of philosophy and other aspects of academia, and all education turned to teachings of social behavior. Women went to school to learn how to socialize with other people, and how to act while at court or in the public sphere (Kelly, 1999). So unfortunately, there is little information and record of any works or writings of women during the Renaissance period. Not only did women have a hard time, but also so did most other people who had the desire to speak out about new ideas that the church did not agree with. Galileo was an astronomer that made assumptions about the world that went against the beliefs of the church, and he was imprisoned for what he said. But it was evident, in growing philosophies that the countries were becoming more open to change. (Walker, 1995).
The Renaissance did not house advances in art alone. The invention of the printing press by Gutenberg in 1445 brought about the ability for a more widespread dispersal of the written works of scholars and the like. In the Middle Ages, books were extremely expensive to make, so they were expensive to buy; only the high-class citizens could afford them. Because Gutenberg's press could produce books quickly and with relatively little effort, bookmaking became much less expensive, allowing more people to buy reading material. Most books had previously been written in Latin, which was considered the language of scholarship. In the Renaissance, the educated middle classes, which could now afford books, demanded works in their own languages. Furthermore, readers wanted a greater variety of books. Almanacs, travel book, chivalry romances, and poetry were all published at this time. As the demand for books grew, the book trade began to flourish throughout Europe, and industries related to it, such as papermaking, thrived as well. The result of all of this was a more literate populace and a stronger economy (Taylor, 1983).
Another great thing that came out the Renaissance was the birth of new religions. During the Renaissance, a churchman named Martin Luther changed Christianity. On October 31, 1517, he went to his church in the town of Wittenburg, Germany, and posted a list of things that worried him about the church. His list included the church's practice of selling indulgences, a means by which people could pay the church to reduce the amount of time their souls must spend in purgatory instead of atoning for their sins via contrition. Luther also requested that, when appropriate, Mass be said in the native language instead of in Latin so that the church's teachings would be more accessible to the people. This request for reform ignited the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation. Many other Christians agreed that the church needed to change, and several new Christian religions were established during this time. The old church became known as Roman Catholic, and new Christian sects were named for their leaders. For example, the Lutherans were named for Martin Luther and the Calvinists were named after John Calvin. Women, again, had very little part in any of these reformations. The only part that women could play that was close to this was the nuns in the Roman Catholic churches. But even then, they had very little power and they mattered little when it came to matters of the organization (Walker, 1995).
There have been critiques from scholars that say that the information that is being distributed on this period is misconstrued, and not always correct. For example, Jacob Burckhardt, in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), claimed that men and women had perfect equality. But, in reality, identity derived from class, family, occupation, and community, although each of these social forms was itself undergoing significant modification. So the women with influence were the ones in higher-class families. Finally, the older view of the Renaissance centered too exclusively on Italy and within Italy on a few cities--Florence, Venice, and Rome. By discarding false dichotomies--Renaissance versus Middle Ages, classical versus Gothic, modern versus feudal--one is able to grasp more fully the interrelatedness of Italy with the rest of Europe and to investigate the extent to which the great centers of Renaissance learning and art were nourished and influenced by less exalted towns and by changes in the pattern of rural life. Most scholarly information comes from these major cities in Italy, but there was still a lot going on elsewhere in Europe. So it is important that people get the full amount of information on the Renaissance as they can, and hopefully my paper will help audiences better understand the life and advances that came out of the Renaissance.
Overall, to some extent a new concept of Europe did emerge. This was because the decline of medieval civilization did not occasion an abrupt break with the past. Medieval institutions persisted well into the modern age. Feudalism, for example, survived into the eighteenth century and helped shape such modern ideas as liberty, the rule of law, and representative government. Further, Christianity continues to influence concepts of justice, and modern thought and art could not have developed as they did without the foundations laid by medieval philosophers and artists. However, significant changes did occur. During this period, for instance, Europe began to outstrip the rest of the world in the use of technology. Further, a secular modern outlook began to emerge. Over the succeeding centuries, that outlook would replace religious explanations of nature with scientific ones; promote the essential equality and freedom of individuals and uphold the independence of human reason.
The Renaissance produced many great minds. Leonardo da Vinci was one of these. Although he was not regarded as a genius in his time, he had numerous works of art such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He also is now regarded as a great inventor. He is credited for coming up with the idea of the helicopter. He dissected corpses to learn more about human anatomy. Another great man was a German monk, Martin Luther. He taught Biblical studies at the University of Wittenberg. Luther's beliefs challenged the church although many people agreed with his ideas. He was eventually excommunicated from the church and he started Protestantism.
