“Why doth solid and serious learning decline, and few or none follow it now in the university?” he asked. “Answer: Because of coffee-houses, where they spend all their time.”- Anthony Wood, Oxford

Western Europe, 1500-1750• Cultural Changes• Protestantism and Counter-Reformation• Scientific Revolution• Enlightenment

• Economic and Social Life• Mercantilism• Monarchies…and Challenge to

Monarchies

The Vatican, Home of the Pope (within Rome)

Organization of Medieval Catholic Church

Pope

Bishops Abbots Missionaries (regional head) (head of monastaries) (wandering monks)

Priests(assigned to local churches)

“Christian Humanism”

Goal?

To reform the Christian Church based on humanist principles

Why reform the Catholic Church?

Renaissance: Boticelli’s Birth of Venus

Corruption?

• Pope’s involvement in political and military matters (Borgia & Machiavelli)

• Wealth of church officials

• Indulgences

1517

Primary Source I

Martin Luther, Table Talk

Let us not lose the Bible, but with diligence, in fear and invocation of God, read and preach it.

No greater mischief can happen to a Christian people, than to have God’s word taken from them, or falsified, so that they no longer have it pure and clear…

Martin Luther, Table TalkPope, cardinals, bishops, not a soul of them has read the Bible; ‘tis a book unknown to them. They are a pack of guzzling, stuffing wretches, rich, wallowing in wealth and laziness, resting secure in their power, and never, for a moment, thinking of accomplishing God’s will….

The Gospel preaches nothing of the merit of works; he that says the Gospel requires works for salvation, I say, flat and plain, is a liar….But a true Christian says: I am justified and saved only by faith in Christ…Prayer in popedom is mere tongue-threshing…; not prayer but a work of obedience.

Martin Luther, Table Talk…Antichrist is the pope and the Turk together….Kings and princes coin money only out of metals, but the pope coins money out of every thing – indulgences, ceremonies, dispensations, pardons…He pretends great holiness…for he has instituted orders with hoods, with shavings, fasting, eating of fish, saying mass, and such like…[F]or his doctrine he gets money and wealth, honor and power, and is so great a monarch, that he can bring emperors under his girdle…

The state of celibacy is great hypocrisy and wickedness…Christ with one sentence confutes all their arguments: God created them male and female…Now eating, drinking, marrying, etc., are of God’s making, therefore they are good…

Protestant Churches

Catholic Response

• Jesuits

• Missionary activity

• Reform Commission

The Reformation: Why should we care?

• Violent conflicts

• Further denominations

• Migration around the world

– (Catholics = missionaries; Protestants = persecutions?)

What do you think of when you hear the word: ‘SCIENCE’?

• Scientia: Latin for ‘knowledge’

• The world hasn’t always been this way… so when did it all begin?

The History of Science• Which regions of the world were traditional innovators?

– Chinese (compass, steel, paper, gunpowder)

– India (decimal system)

– Arabs (astrolabe, lateen sail)

• Rise of Europe after 1400 CE:

– Scholasticism (Aristotle + faith) from 12th century on

– Renaissance thinkers discovered Ptolemy (an astronomer), Archimedes (a mathematician), and Plato through Southernization

– Age of Exploration

GREEK GEOCENTRICISM

1473-1543

HELIOCENTRICITY

Galileo before the Inquisition, 1633

Isaac Newton

“Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night,

God said, ‘Let Newton be,’ and all was light.”

-Alexander Pope, 1713

The

Scientific

Method“prove it or

lose it!”

• Could you apply the Scientific Method to improving society? How would you do that?

BEYOND THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

French salon, often at invitation of elite women

Compare with symposium

The Philosophes

Clockwise from

top left: Voltaire,

Rousseau,

Locke,

Montesquieu

Immanuel KantWhat is Enlightenment?

Case Studies

Granada

Goya, The Spanish Inquisition

Europe: outside world entering daily lives

Cf. China & East Asia: Outside world should stay outside

Cf. Africa & Middle East

“the lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us;” (John Winthrop, 1630)

Mercantilism

“Rulers…act as the ministers

of God…on earth…. The royal

power is absolute.”

– Bossuet, French orator, during the reign

of the Sun King, Louis XIV (17th century)

Marquis de CondorcetProgress! (or Progress?)

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, Joseph Wright, 1768

An Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump, Joseph Wright, 1768