Science, Technology, And A New Way of Thinking

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND A NEW

WAY OF THINKINGDeath to the Middle

Ages and the Birth ofThe Modern Age

THREE INVENTIONS Gunpowder, printing, and the compass

were important inventions that contributed to the breakdown of feudalism in Western Europe

-Gunpowder, brought from China, meant the end of the power of the feudal castle and increased the ability of the monarch to wage war against feudal barons

Movable type, invented around 1488, put education within the reach of the masses and made the circulation of the Bible possible

- Printing influenced the Renaissance and the Reformation

The compass, brought from China through Spain, plus geographical knowledge gained from Arab cartographers made possible European contact with the Americas during the 1500s and the commercial revolution in Europe

A NEW WAY OF THINKING - HUMANISM In Italy, a new concept

of humanity was evolving

A sense of the tremendous capacities and potential of every human being replaced the concept of the frail creature in need of God’s grace: humanity became worthy of study in its own right

Dante (1265-1321) wrote his Divine Comedy in Italian

- He broke with tradition by writing in the vernacular rather than Latin and stressed happiness on earth

- The Comedy is considered the highest literary expression of medieval thought

Petrarch (1304-1347) has been called the father of humanism, because he was among the first scholars to revive interest in classical literature

- His sonnets stress earthly love and physical beauty rather than the glory of God

Machiavelli produced a handbook of statecraft called The Prince (1513), which was the first European secular and pragmatic treatise on politics

In many ways he diagnosed the era in which kings were breaking with the authority of the church and national states were demanding the loyalty of the people

-“It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”

-A monarch must maintain his power by any means necessary

CHRISTIAN HUMANISM Humanism spread into north and

central Europe nearly a century after it had begun in Italy

- The humanism of the north has often been called Christian humanism because it blended the religious with secular humanitarian concerns

- Erasmus of Rotterdam was the greatest of all northern humanists…He satirized the scholastic philosophers, called for the reform of the clergy, and urged the translation of the Bible into vernacular languages

FIVE MOVEMENTS TOWARDS MODERN CIVILIZATION IN EUROPE

1. The Renaissance2. The Birth of Nations3. The Discovery and

Exploration of the Americas4. The Revolt Against the

Papacy5. The Scientific Discoveries

and Experiments

THE RENAISSANCE Height of the Renaissance: 1450 to 1559 Location: The Italian City-States –

Florence, Venice, and Milan became rich on trade and art was financed on a scale not seen since the classical age

Key Ideas: Humanism and Secularism Key Artists: Michelangelo, Da Vinci,

Raphael, Donatello, Brunelleschi Don’t Forget: Shakespeare in England,

Cervantes in Spain, and Montaigne in France

The Literal Meaning: “Rebirth”

THE RENAISSANCE SPREAD NORTHWARD AND WESTWARD Although generally more subdued and

often more religious than it was on the Italian peninsula

It is important to remember that medieval art was almost entirely religious

But Renaissance art was religious and secular, combining both Christian and humanist elements

Medieval art existed mostly in cathedrals; Renaissance art was commissioned by both religious and secular leaders, and adorned public plazas and homes

Medieval art was flat and stiff; Renaissance art was realistic and more human

Medieval art didn’t try to be worldly; Renaissance art tried very much to be of this world

JOHANNES GUTENBERG Printing was developed in China

during the Song Dynasty But moveable type wasn’t invented

in Europe until the mid-1400s, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press

Prior to Gutenberg’s inventions, the creation of books was such a long and laborious task that few were made

Those that were made were usually printed in Latin

As a result, the typical person didn’t read

The printing press changed that Books became easy to produce and thus

were far more affordable The growing middle class fueled

demand for books that were written in their own vernacular language

THE REFORMATION The Medieval Church was a powerful

institution It was the one institution that the people

of western Europe had in common It was a unifying force With one foot on Earth and the other in

heaven, the pope acted as the intermediary between man and god

When the church needed to finance its immense building projects plus pay for the huge number of Renaissance artists in its employ, it began to sell indulgences

An indulgence was a piece of paper that the faithful could purchase to reduce time in purgatory

In purgatory, a sinner would expiate or make amends for his sins and then be allowed to enter heaven

Because purgatory was not a happy place to go, people greatly valued the concept of reducing their time there

Selling indulgences was not only a means of generating income but also a way for the church to maintain power over the masses

During this time, land-owning nobles grew increasingly resentful of the church, which had amassed an enormous amount of power and wealth and exploited a huge number of resources at the expense of the nobles

This resentment and mistrust fueled anti-church sentiments

The selling of indulgences propelled the frustration into the ranks of the peasant class and helped set the stage for confrontation

The selling of indulgences also confirmed to many the corrupt nature of the church

MARTIN LUTHER A professor at the University of Wittenberg Posted his Ninety-five Theses directed against

the selling of indulgences in 1517 Luther claimed that the source of spiritual

authority was not the church but scripture and the individual reader

The church was not necessary to salvation, because only faith could save man (“justification by faith alone”)

After the Diet of Worms in 1520, Luther refused to recant, was excommunicated, and Lutheranism was formed in defiance of the Roman Catholic Church

MORE DISAGREEMENTS Other theologians began to assert

their own biblical interpretations John Calvin from France led a

Protestant group by preaching an ideology of predestination

Calvinist doctrine stated that God had predetermined an ultimate destiny for all people, most of whom God had already damned

Only a few would be saved and those people were known as the elect according to Calvin

John Knox founded the Presbyterian church in Scotland but differed little from Calvin in theology

Henry VIII of England broke with the Roman Catholic church in 1534 because the pope refused to allow him to divorce his wife

Although Henry broke without first adopting any essential Protestant principles, eventually the forces of reform prevailed and the Anglican or Episcopalian church developed

PROTESTANT THEOLOGY Although Protestants split into

Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Huguenots, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, and so forth, each sect had certain beliefs in common

1. All Protestants rejected papal authority and the supernatural character of the priesthood

2. All replaced Latin with the vernacular (the language of the country) and accepted the authority of the Bible

3. All believed, with various interpretations, in justification by faith alone

4. All rejected purgatory, transubstantiation, and obligatory confession

5. All reduced the number of sacraments, usually to two or three

THE CATHOLIC COUNTER-REFORMATION At the Council of Trent, sitting

irregularly in the mid-1500s, the Roman Catholic church was reformed and rejuvenated

In Spain, the Renaissance spirit had not taken over, and it was here that Catholicism was most militant

Saint Ignatius Loyola founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), a monastic order dedicated to active participation in world affairs and acting as a missionary force throughout Asia and the Americas

The Inquisition was first established in Rome to enforce conformity throughout the Catholic world

THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION Change from a self-sufficient town-

centered economy to a capitalistic nation-centered economy

New wealth and prosperity in Europe from the profits of trade led to changes at home, for the commercial aristocracy began to rival the landed aristocracy in social and political power

Mercantilism was a direct result of attempts by states to acquire more money through the creation of a favorable balance of trade

THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION The essence of science is the union of

reason with observation and experimentation: the reasoned postulate or working hypothesis is accepted only as long as it accords with the observed data

THE MEN OF SCIENCE Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543):

Disputed the Ptolemaic theory, which stated that the sun revolved around the earth…Instead he advanced a heliocentric or sun-centered universe theory that was mathematically simpler than the geocentric

Johannes Kepler (1571-1642): Kepler carried Copernicus’ theory further and discovered the orbits of the planets were ellipses

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642): Built one of the first telescopes, confirmed the Copernican theory, and suggested that planetary bodies were made of the same substance as the earth…Forced to recant by the Roman Catholic Church

Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Formalized the inductive method of acquiring knowledge and emphasized the usefulness of knowledge

Rene Descartes (1596-1650): The developer of coordinate geometry, believed that nature could be reduced to a mathematical formula and advanced “the principle of systematic doubt”

Isaac Newton (1642-1727): In 1687 Newton published the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy showing that all motion could be described by the same mathematical formula

Gravitation was the force that moved matter

Until Einstein, his theories remained unshaken, but now it has been proved that they do not apply to subatomic structures

THE EFFECTS OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY Although the effects of the new

science were important in navigation, in the development of calculus, in the science of map-making, and in warfare, the psychological effects were the most profound for mankind could no longer claim to be the center of the universe

The universe was seen as natural, understandable by natural laws which could also be applied to society

THE RIVALRY AMONG THE EUROPEAN POWERS Modern nationalism was in part the

product of the nineteenth century The French revolution fostered it The mass army, the indoctrination

that every person was a citizen with a duty to serve the state, and the loyalty to the state rather than the estate (class or group) were ideas of the revolution

Nationalism also sprang up as a resistance movement to French imperialism and Napoleonic dictatorship

In the nineteenth century nationalism was a force for the unification of states whose peoples had been divided into a multitude of states

The ideal of European political unity gave rise to a new allegiance to the national state

European fragmentation fueled rivalry and competition

All of these factors gave rise to a new era, the modern era, an era of hopes, triumphs, and tragedies; an era of great change.