Stuff
Crusades (Start)
1095 - Pope Urban II calls the first crusade
Major Italian City States
- Venice
- Florence
- Genoa
Fall of Constantinople
1453 - Byzantine scholars flee west with Greek texts → helps classical learning
High Middle Ages
- 1000-1300
- A period of European population, agricultural, and economic prosperity
- Happened right before the disaster of the 14th century
Crusades (End Year)
1291 - The Muslim Mamluks captured the coastal city of Acre, Israel
Renaissance (Dates)
Roughly 14th century - 17th century
Gutenberg Printing Press
1450 - Helps spread Renaissance ideas much faster
Great Schisms
- 1054
- Permanently divided Christianity into Western Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Crusades
- Religious wars fought mainly between European Christians and Muslims
- Christians wanted to take/control Jerusalem and the Holy Land to defend it from Muslim rule, defend the Christian Byzantine Empire, and secure safe travel for religious pilgrimages
The "Father" of the Renaissance and Humanism
Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374)
The Prince
- Book written by Machiavelli in 1513
- A ruler’s primary job is to maintain power and stability at all costs, even if it means using deception, cruelty, and violence
Northern Renaissance
- 1400-1600
- Occurred in countries north of the alps
- Similar secular themes to the Renaissance, but focused more on “reforming the church” rather than “ignoring it”
- Set the groundwork for the Protestant reformation
Crusades/Renaissance connection
- The Crusades increased contact between Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Muslim world
- Crusades brought back new goods, technologies, science, medicine, and classical Greek/Roman knowledge to Europe
- Italian city-states became especially wealthy from trade
- That wealth helped fund artists, scholars, and humanists through patronage
Humanism
A non-religious philosophy believing in human potential, freedom, and using reason/science over religion (1400-1600)
Luther's 95 Theses
1517 - Protestant Reformation begins
High Middle Ages connection to Renaissance
- Established the first universities
- Rise of the middle class
- Rediscovery of classical texts
- Moving armies across the Mediterranean opened permanent trade links between Western Europe and the Near East
- Port cities like Venice and Genoa grew rich by shipping troops, supplies, and exotic Eastern goods like silk and spices
- The wealth went to funding art and education
Secularism
The principle that government, laws, and public education should be kept separate from religion
Individualism
A social and political philosophy that places the highest value on the independence, freedom, and moral worth of the individual person
The rise of absolute monarchs
- Important renaissance figures (like Machiavelli) argued for a strong, autocratic figure (a king)
- The secular ideas of the renaissance led to the church weakening and the king increasing in power