The Renaissance

During the Middle Ages, the nations of Europe forged new identities, moving away from the lost glory of the Roman Empire toward their own distinct character. The process was often clumsy and uneven, as emerging nations developed at their own pace, struggling to replace Rome's protection with strength of their own. What they did share was the Roman Catholic Church, which defined itself as the spiritual protector of Christian believers. But the dutiful Christians of the Middle Ages, who sought orthodoxy and largely obeyed papal rule, began to change once the Middle Ages ended. The Renaissance, or rebirth, was a period when Europeans began questioning what they had long been told was sacrosanct. Through art, invention, science, literature, and theology, the nations of Europe sought answers the Church seemed unwilling, or unable, to provide.

The Church, having become a powerful political entity, was viewed with growing distrust and skepticism; the spread of learning that followed Gutenberg's printing press meant bold new ideas traveled across Europe faster than the Church could silence them. Power-brokering popes could not halt the challenges they faced once a German priest rebelled against corrupt practices masquerading as ecclesiastical authority. As old certainties fell, humanism flourished, inspiring the art of Michelangelo, the science of Vesalius, and the literature of Shakespeare and Cervantes. But the loss of religious uniformity brought terrible conflict: France suffered the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Spain welcomed the Inquisition to purge heresy, and the Low Countries split between Catholic and Protestant. The Renaissance was a triumph of the human spirit and a testament to human ability, affirming the willingness of men and women to die for the right to think freely.