Reformation

Reformation is a revolution of a large sections of Christians broke away from the catholic church and formed a separate group of Christianity.It also known as protestant revolt rather than reformation. It also assumed a political character too.The popes besides claiming spiritual supremacy,often interfered in the internal affairs of the other countries in western Europe.Such interference clashed with the rising sentiment of national patriotism.the reformation was therefor not only a religious revolution but also a national revolt against the domination  of the foreign authority of the pope.There were several causes contributed to the reformation movement.Church corruption—such as the selling of indulgences, nepotism (the practice of appointing one’s relatives to offices),the pursuit of personal wealth by bishops, and the sexual indulgence of the clergy etc were the main reasons of the reformation. another prominent reason was the renaissance. Actually reformation was the child of renaissance.The critical spirit generated by the renaissance aroused a spirit of opposition among thinking men against the evils which had crept into the church.

At the end of the fourteenth century John Wycliffe an oxford professor,who has been called the morning star of reformation,severely criticized the temporal power of the church and immortality of the clergy.Erasmus and other humanist scholars of Germany, by their criticism against the evils of the church prepared the ground for the reception of the seeds of reformation. The German humanist were only reformers and not revolutionaries.they wanted to reform the church within the church and opposed the idea of separation from the catholic church.But the criticism which they opened, invited the deluge of the reformation.the advent of press helped to hi-lighten the feeling of anti clericalism and make the path clear to for the reformation. 

The growth of national consciousnesses Europe and the rise of despotic governments were another causes of reformation.The political ambitions of the despotic monarchs combined with the intense national spirit of the peoples dealt a severe blow to the secular and spiritual authority of the pope and created the proper climate for the reformation.The church had become a vast economic empire.it was the largest landowner in Europe.

The immediate cause of the reformation was the arrival of a Dominican monk Tetzel to Germany for the sale of indulgences.Martin Luther (1483– 1546), an obscure German monk and brilliant theologian started a rebellion against the church’s authority in Germany.

Humanism

Humanism, one of the most characteristic intellectual movement of the Renaissance.It was an educational and cultural program based on the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature.The humanist attitude toward antiquity differed from that of medieval scholars, who had taken pains to fit classical learning into a Christian world-view. Renaissance humanists did not subordinate the classics to the requirements of Christian doctrines. Rather, they valued ancient literature for its own sake, for its clear and graceful style and for its insights into human nature. For the humanists, the classics were a guide to the good life, the active life. To achieve self-cultivation, to write well, to speak well, and to live well, it was necessary to know the classics. Italian humanists used classical learning to nourish their new interest in a worldly life.  Renaissance humanists increase the circulation of every Roman work that could be found and that lead to  the study of Greek.They often treated moral problems in a purely secular manner. Yet in dealing with religious and theological issues, they did not challenge Christian belief or question the validity of the Bible.They stressed  on the direct study of the Bible and the writings of the church fathers. 

The humanists, however, stressed the importance of human actions and human will in history, the importance of people  as active participants in the shaping of events.The humanist emphasis on historical scholarship yielded a method of  critical inquiry that could help to undermine traditional loyalties and institutions.In contrast, Renaissance humanists approached ancient civilization with a critical attitude; they studied texts in a historical context and examined them for authenticity and accuracy.


Petrarch (1304–1374) one of the early humanists, called the father of humanism.

Erasmus(1466–1536) was another humanist who made Renaissance humanism an international movement.Erasmian humanism stressed toleration, kindness, and respect for human rationality. 

Francois Rabelais (1494–1553), a former monk,who spread the humanist spirit in France. In response to religious dogmatism, he asserted the essential goodness of the individual and the right to enjoy the world rather than being bound by the fear of a punishing God. 

Sir Thomas More (1478–1535)one of the most influential humanist of the early English Renaissance, was studied at Oxford. His impact came from both his writing and his career. Trained as a lawyer, he was a successful civil servant and member of Parliament. His most famous book is Utopia,the first major utopian treatise to be written in the West.Utopia consider as one of the most original works of the entire Renaissance

Renaissance

The word renaissance means “rebirth,” and it is used to denote the whole transition from theMiddle Ages to the Modern World.During the Renaissance, individuals showed an increasing concernfor worldly life and self-consciously aspired to shape their destinies - an attitude that is the key to modernity.This rebirth began in Italy during the fourteenth century and gradually spread north and west to Germany, France, England, and Spain during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Renaissance was one avenue to modernity; another was the ReformationIt also accentuated the importance of the individual person, a distinctive feature of the modern outlook. It stressed individual conscience rather than clerical authority, insisted on a personal relationship between each man or woman and God, and called attention to the individual’s inner religious capacities.

Renaissance artists and writers were fascinated by the cultural forms of Greece and Rome; they sought to imitate classical style and to capture the secular spirit of antiquity.In the process, they broke with medieval artistic and literary forms. They valued the full development of human talent and expressed a new excitement about the possibilities of life in this world.Individualism was another hallmark of the Renaissance.Renaissance Italy produced a distinctive human type, the “universal man”: a many-sided person, who not only showed mastery of the ancient classics, an appreciation of and even talent for the visual arts, and a concern for the day-to-day affairs of his city, but also aspired to mold his life into a work of art.Renaissance artists portrayed the individual character of human beings, captured the rich diversity of human personality,produced the first portraits since Roman times, and affixed their signatures to their works.Renaissance writers probed their own feelings and manifested a self-awareness that characterizes the modern outlook.This new outlook, however, applied almost exclusively to an elite princes, courtiers,court ladies, wealthy urban families,and exceptionally talented artists and writers

During the Renaissance, the secular spirit andthe concern with the individual found expression in the intellectual movement called humanism and in a political theory that separated politics from Christian principles.Erasmus  belongs the credit for making Renaissance humanism an international movement.The great Renaissance artists are Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), and Raphael Santi (1483–1520). Aided by the invention of printing, the Renaissance spread to Germany, France, England, and Spain .The Renaissance, then, marks the birth of modernity in art, in the idea of the individual’s role in history and nature, and in society, politics, war, and diplomacy. Renaissance set an example of what people might achieve in art and architecture, taste and refinement, education and urban culture. In many fields, the Renaissance set the cultural standards of the modern age.

History is a means to understand the past and present, in another words it is the study of the human past, with special attention to the written record. Scholars who write about history are called historians.The word history comes from Greek 'historia' . the meaning of the word is "relation of incidents, story".In Middle English, the meaning was "story" in general.

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484 BC – 425 BC) has generally been acclaimed as the "father of history". However, his contemporary Thucydides (460 BC – 400 BC) is credited with having first approached history with a well-developed historical method in his work 'The History of the Peloponnesian War'.

Since historians are observers and participants, the works they produce are written from the perspective of their own time and sometimes with due concern for possible lessons for their own future. In the words of Benedetto Croce, "All history is contemporary history". History is facilitated by the formation of a 'true discourse of past' through the production of narrative and analysis of past events relating to the human race.

The modern discipline of history is dedicated to the institutional production of this discourse.All events that are remembered and preserved in some authentic form, constitute the historical record.The task of historical discourse is to identify the sources which can most usefully contribute to the production of accurate accounts of past.Traditionally, historians have recorded events of the past, either in writing or by passing on an oral tradition, and have attempted to answer historical questions through the study of written documents and oral accounts. For the beginning, historians have also used such sources as monuments, inscriptions, and pictures.
In general, the sources of historical knowledge can be separated into three categories: what is written, what is said, and what is physically preserved, and historians often consult all three. But writing is the marker that separates history from what comes before.

The history of human is a story of perpetual change.History is usually divided into three periods
Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. 

Ancient History begins with the earliest nations of which we can gain any certain knowledge, and extends to the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.
Medieval History embraces the period about one thousand years in length, lying between the fall of
Rome and the discovery of the New World by Columbus.
Modern History commences with the close of the medieval period and extends to the present time.In the medieval period religion was the strongest bond of union among the people.There was common faith and common obedience to a single spiritual authority.As opposed to this, modern age is the age of religious toleration.While the middle age was the age of faith, the modern age is the age of reason.the renaissance,the new discoveries and inventions and the reformation are the chief forces which bought about the transition from middle age to the modern age.