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What would you say were the primary reasons for the birth of the Renaissance out of the Middle Ages?
Economic and social stability. The regression of the mini ice age. The primacy of the Church who hired many artists to decorate its cathedrals. Increased urbanization. I'm sure there are dozens of other factors.
Economic and social stability. The regression of the mini ice age. The primacy of the Church who hired many artists to decorate its cathedrals. Increased urbanization. I'm sure there are dozens of other factors.
My objection to your answer is that a number of those factors were present in the Middle Ages which led to that age's success.
Economic and social stability. The regression of the mini ice age. The primacy of the Church who hired many artists to decorate its cathedrals. Increased urbanization. I'm sure there are dozens of other factors.
My objection to your answer is that a number of those factors were present in the Middle Ages which led to that age's success.
History is a marathon Phid; not a sprint. Historians created the Middle Ages and Renaissance to package their classes into semesters. 🙂
I realize there is overlapping between different “stages” in history, and that we are the ones placing classifications on history for our own purposes of making it easier to understand. Perhaps I should have said that the advancements that you brought up were witnessed in the 12th or 13th century, or before. For example, those years saw a great increase in the population and commerce began to grow significantly. Great Romanesque and Gothic churches were built that towered over cities. I also think that social stability existed (relatively speaking) so as to enable the cooperation of nations during the Crusades. Because of the presence of those features during the early centuries of the millennium I didn't think they were really responsible for ushering in the Renaissance age, which seems to be a distinct time period starting in the late 14th/early 15th century in Italy and moving north from there. Then again, perhaps you were referring to examples that I'm not aware of. IMO, the Renaissance seems to have grown out of a reaction (at least in part) against the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages, perhaps new translations or the discovery of ancient writings, and Gutenberg's movable type which allowed books to be available more widely and learning to be thought of in a new light. I'm sure there are other reasons as well.
Phid, I think you are on track with your notion of the reemergence of the classics as being a spur to the renaissance. I have always thought that the classics led the men of the Renaissance to think beyond the traditional christian precepts and look at the world with a more critical and questioning eye. This in turn led to the great social and scientirfic advances that are the foundations modern society is built upon. This interconnectedness between different era is one of the things that has always fascinated me about history. A simplistic chain going something like Aristotle inspiring Galileo inspiring, inspiring Halley and so on down to the present.
I'm not a history buff; I thought the views of my favorite college history prof were fairly well accepted by scholars. His view was that the huge proportion of the population of Europe that died off during the plague left 'surplusses' in infrastructure (though surplus might not be the exact word I want) and means of propduction. Excess capacity in Europe as a whole enabled leisure time that in turn, increasingly, led to scientific and other areas of enquiry that we call “The Rennaissance” Has anybody else ever heard any theories ressembling this one? I have no pretentions to knowing anything; just stumbled into this forum and find it fascinating and i'd like to learn more.
The die-offs in the various Plagues actually hurt the European economy much more than they helped it. Scarcity of labor drove prices higher and there were less people to do the same work. Following the great plague of 1348-1356 Europe was hit by a massive depression.
Welcome to the forum, fiiirebaugh!I am no Renaissance expert, either, and I hadn't heard the view that you presented here. I think the view I have heard about the Black Death (and subsequent epidemics) is that it decreased the supply in workers and shifted the economic landscape, which I think led to the abandonment/modification of what we call "feudalism". Generally speaking, when demand outstrips supply prices rise, and so after the mid-14th century this would have meant greater competition for workers and therefore increased wages. What would the excess in infrastructure have meant for people of the late 14th and 15th centuries? I doubt that that alone would have been significant enough to spur the Renaissance; after all, there were population drops in Europe prior to that without accompanying intellectual movements (e.g. the population of Rome dropped to as low as 20k or so at one point).Another things is that the Renaissance seems to have been rooted as an intellectual/cultural movement. That is, there was a new conception of the human person and of Roman civilization. Could economics have influenced this? Perhaps to some degree (e.g. increased wealth could have enabled the building of new forms of architecture and the patronage of more art) but it would only be a partial explanation.Anyway, I should try to do some reading on the view your professor provided.
I did some reading on the effects of the Black Death last night–about its effects in England specifacly–and what I read basically elaborated on what you just said. Humph….perhaps I misremember that old argument (of my prof); its was many winters ago.*Something* changed--I don't know what--does anyone think that, for a while at least, the huge dieoff from the Black Death and resulting societal chaos weakened the ability of The Church to stifle new ideas?Speaking of the Black Death, my surfing led me into a Stanford genetics site last night. Apparently, many of these folks believe that the plague was actually *two* plagues--the bubonic plague we're all familiar with coupled with a hemoraggic viral agent. They think this because the rate of expansion of the plague-two miles per day--is faster, they argue, than the bacterial rat-flea thing could have pushed the perimeter of disease outward. Furthermore, they said, the while the Black Death burned itself out in the 1600's there continue to be pockets of endemic bubonic thruout the globe. The part of the Europen population that did best against Black Death had a gene mutation (that had hitherto been rare) that accorded them some protection. The gene mutation resulted in a change to the protein coat of human white cells that are a part of our immune system. the changed protein, called ccr5--32 prevented the hypothesized viral agent from invading host white cells and using them to repplicate itself. If all this sounds familiar, it should, since the continued presence of this particular protein in immune system of those of Europen heritage is what provides many of these individuals with a measure of protection from the HIV virus that African and Asian populations generally lack.
I have never heard of the viral theory but it is interesting to say the least. I dont know how they would prove without extensive exhumation of plague victims and testing. I tend to buy into the Renaissance being the result of the rediscovery of the classics by the scholastics coupled with the permissive attitude of discovery in the Italian state where the Renaissance started.
Interesting note about the possible types of plague. I had heard something like that before but hadn't known about the historical evidence which suggested the travel rates of the infected rats/fleas. I know that although the episode of there having been one giant epidemic, the one from c. 1348, may be losing steam as historians realize the ongoing nature of the plague which infected Europe, as I have heard, until even the 19th century. Some of the epidemics were worse than others, but even the plague that hit northern Italy in 1630 killed off 30% or more of the populations of towns. At the same time, I had heard that the idea of the plague as a steamroller moving across Europe isn't totally accurate, since some pockets/town actually did not get infected (and I don't know that there is a good reason as to why this was the case). Perhaps the answer is due to the gene mutation, which could well have been a common factor among citizens in isolated towns.
My comments about the Black Death oversimplified what I read to the point of inaccuracy I think. Sorry. Anyhow, if you want to read how and why their theories about ccr5 developed you can check these links as a starting place: http://www.thetech.org/genetics/news.php?id=13http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v427/n6975/full/427606a.html I guess I unintentionally pulled this thread a bit off-topic. As to the emergence of the Rennaissance, I'm sure all the factors mentioned so far did contribute to it greatly. But I also think there was something more. In looking at not so much the history of events as the history of ideas, the bloom, proliferation, and extinction of specifac ideas and schools of thought (in the variety of areas) reminds me in some way of the bloom, growth, and decay of other living systems. From the time I read Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" to the present day, I started to think very differently about the ways in which the "spirit" of an age (for lack of a better term) evolves from point a to b, c, d, etc.If we're talking about, for instance, rediscovered classics being seeds that fell on more fertile minds of a more permissive Italy, how did Italy get to have a more permissive consensus? Was it led by one or more really powerful individuals who persuaded everyone else? (I tend to think this is most likely). Could you measure the rate of change? Did it build up slowly like water that collects behind a dam til it breaks the dam or was it more like a linear thing? Hypothetically, if we knew enough, could me make a mathematical model for it?For example, the mainstream of 20th century philosophy come almost entirely from a group of a dozen or so individuals referred to as the Vienna Circle (most notably Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell). I studied how this school of philosphy proliferated and the pattern follows real closely the model that Thomas Kuhn describes. What do you guys think of this?
