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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 49, Renaissance:
March 1, 2004:
Renaissance means rebirth and that is what occurred in Europe following the dark ages. There was a rebirth, a true revival of learning, a rediscovery of the classic worlds of Greece and Rome. We mark the renaissance as emerging around 1350 in Italy. It followed a bit later in the rest of Europe. Like most historical developments, this rebirth did not occur full blown, but evolved naturally out of situations and developments near the end of the dark ages.
As early as 1100 it was clear that the Church was failing to stabilize and direct the vitality of Europe. The puppet Holy Roman Empire, supported by the church was no help. In fact it proved to be just another problem with the various emperors and other secular powers. Their nationalistic goals put them constantly at odds with the authority of the church. In that struggle the city states became more important as church authority declined. This ultimately produced the national monarchies as the feudal structures disappeared and national languages evolved.
As a unifying force, we saw that the crusades were also a failure. They did nothing but waste the resources of Europe and the East. Equally, the inquisitions, whatever their purpose, ended by being a disruptive and destructive influence in Europe. They weakened rather than strengthened the church. Thus, the seeds of change were already sprouted and growing. The plants were ready to bear fruit and they did.
The renaissance emerged in Italy and in time it flowed over Europe in a wave of art, architecture, literature, science, and philosophy. Political and religious change were bound to follow. The reformation lead by Martin Luther was a profound religious redirection. Though we cannot say the renaissance ever came to and end, it had its time of glory from about the 14th to the 18th century. From there it evolved into the Age of Enlightenment. Out of the Enlightenment came the wondrous political changes that culminated in the American revolution and our own Constitution. I will get to that in time.
This Renaissance was not all a one way flow. There was a great deal of struggle as the old world resisted the new. As I cover these developments I will try to give a view of that ongoing struggle. There were some marvelous breakthroughs for Western man at this time and the price extracted by the powers in Rome was sometimes extreme. Many of these men of the Renaissance can be considered heros in every sense of the word. They risked and ofttimes forfeited their lives for the advancement of science and ultimately humanity. Some of them, as with Bruno, suffered horrible deaths because of their quest for knowledge.
Western man had come full circle, from the magnificence of the Graeco-Roman civilization into the evils of the dark ages and Christianity and, out of that, into the Renaissance with its flowering of art, science, and philosophy. This time also produced the Reformation. Lest we get too romantic about this Reformation I will note that it was just a small step upward. It was an improvement in degree, but not in kind. The Reformation still embraced all of the primitive superstitious beliefs and dogmas of the Christianity that grew out of the Jewish tradition.
Let us be very clear, Lutheranism and Calvinism, while a bit less brutal, still embodied the fundamentalist doctrines of the Semites. They still espoused their vengeful monstrous God dealing out his fire and brimstone on all who disagreed. Luther did not revolt against Rome's theology. His revolt was against the bad behavior of the Roman prelates. It was in fact a reaffirmation of the old original Christian doctrines. As to their attitude toward non-believers, he and Calvin were in full agreement with the Church of Rome. They were an abomination. This intolerance was never better demonstrated than in the events in America at Salem in 1692.
In contrast to that, the distinctive philosophy of the renaissance was Humanism. This philosophy was first expressed by secular men, so called men of letters rather than by clerics. Recall that it was mainly the clerics who had developed the Scholastic philosophy. Oddly enough, it was the Crusader's sack of Constantinople in 1453 that gave much of the impetus to the Humanist movement. At that time fleeing eastern scholars found a haven in Italy. Among the gifts they brought with them was the tradition of Greek scholarship along with some priceless manuscripts.
Unlike Scholasticism, Humanism took man and all of his behaviors, interests, and achievements as its field of study. Therein it placed a high value on man's dignity. It expressed a view known as syncretism. That is a kind of merging of differing doctrines. It points up the compatibility of all truths of all theologies and philosophies. I see this as the idea that truth is where you find it and needs no seal of approval from any institution or mystical agent. The Humanists were seeking a rebirth of what was lost in the dark ages.
In their search for that they freed the oppressed human spirit as never before. A new outlook developed wherein man was suddenly free of the mental constraints laid on by the preceding religious conformity. They were free to investigate, learn, and publish and they did. Though the clerics continued to resist and sometimes viciously punish independent thinking, the tide had changed and could not be stopped.
I believe the Renaissance was just a first step in the reawakening of man. Now, I believe it is time to take the next step. It is time to move away from the absolutist notions and the magic based primitive beliefs of the Semitic desert tribes. It is time to admit what we do not know and open to a new age of striving for knowledge. It is time to try to understand the universe and our place in it. It is time for man to accept the challenge of consciousness and aspire to greatness. The alternative will be the continuing degeneration and ultimate dissolution of civilization. I will have more to say on this in the appropriate place.
In the following essays I want to take a brief tour in time of just some of this massive outpouring of human creativity which had been successfully suppressed by the doings of the dark ages. Once release it was an unstoppable fountain that poured forth to the betterment of all mankind. I will try to keep from making this investigation a patchwork quilt. I want to show a coherent picture, a true panoramic view of what was happening at that time.
We have a great gang of great men to cover. I will move through some of them one by one in chronological order when possible and give them the space necessary to form the picture. Please understand I cannot do real justice to these men in the space I can allow in this work. My goals remain the same. That is to trace the evolution of democracy and civilization in the Western world from the big bang to Jefferson. I urge everyone who is interested to look further into this flowering of human genius that blossomed in the Renaissance. Even if you are not interested, if you but look, you will become interested. The life and work of each one of these men is a study unto itself and well worth your time. You have your local library, your encyclopedias, and the internet. Every significant library is available to you through the internet. Reach out to find the information and learn.
Teach yourself and teach your kids. For their sake, make history
the exciting adventure story that it really is. History is not
the boring, beat over the head, memory chore that your school
teachers made it out to be. It is the most exciting adventure
story you will ever encounter. If you found this boring when you
were in school, it is not your fault and it is not the fault of
history. It is the fault of the machine and the bored boring teachers
who ran the machine. Rather then opening that wonderful adventure
story for you, they beat you over the head with it. They were
not excited about it and they could not excite you. You ran away
from it and you should have because it was awful. Now I urge you
to come back. The teachers are gone, but the adventure story remains.
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