1st Phase Renaissance - Renaissance & Reformation 1400-1600

(March 20, 2025) The Renaissance was time when new trade wealth supported classical themed art inspired by increasing knowledge of the classics. It was the visible culmination of 200 years of slow cultural change. The Renaissance (and early science) ceased in Catholic lands starting in 1545 with their increasing religious intolerance brought on by the Counter-Reformation. Secular art and science then moved north into Protestant lands.

(July 6, 2022) Repeated exposure to new facts is what breaks old paradigms. This process was accelerated by the invention of the printing press combined with low cost paper.

Paper making as the random combination of plant fibers into a sheet began in China around 105 CE. The first historical report of this appears in the official history of the Han dynasty written sometime in the 400s CE. It says this:

Europe did not develop a surplus of old clothes until after 1250 with the adoption of the spinning wheel and horizontal loom. This was also the time when paper started to be produced in Spain and Italy after getting the idea via the Arabs (Hunter 1949). As a comparison, 140 calves had to be killed to provide enough velum for one small Bible which was a great expense.

Sometime during the 1440's Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468) invented the movable-type printing press. Gutenberg was born in Mainz Germany and had attended the University of Mainz for at least a few years so he would have observed the high demand for various written items. Mainz was also at the center of wine making country so he would have also been familiar with the presses which pressed grapes to extract the juice. In his early 30's he traveled down the Rhine river to the prosperous trading city of Strasbourg to find the funding to produce his printing press. During the 1430s he got this funding from some Strasbourg merchants. He did his work in secret hiring a carpenter and goldsmith as needed to help produce the printing machine parts. It would have taken him about a year just to make all the needed letter punches by himself. The ink he probably used was soot mixed into the sun thickened, cold pressed, linseed oil which was also used in paints. His first prints were common high volume items for the church like prayer books and indulgence certificates. This new ability to mass print indulgences was one factor which led to the Reformation. When Guttenberg felt he was ready he went upscale and printed his famous Latin Bibles starting in late 1454. These used both red and black ink and many pages were hand decorated. The paper was some of the finest paper of the age having no imperfections. These were displayed at the Frankfort trade fair in late 1454 to much acclaim.

References

(July 6, 2022) The medieval authoritarian paradigm really started to change when the Protestants claimed the Bible and not church doctrine was authoritative and it could not have happened without its amplification by printing press also giving voice to class and nationalist frustrations. The Protestants also claimed that human reason could extract Biblical knowledge.  (See the movie Luthor for an emotionally compelling introduction to this time period)

The Reformation was accidentally started by Martin Luthor who only intended to debate the selling of indulgences for the purposes of absolving sin but ended up challenging Papal authority because the Pope had commanded that selling and because the press actively spread his opposition (nothing like controversy to sell papers and books)

In 1515 Pope Leo X put forth a new and more extreme indulgence selling scheme to raise money for the construction of  St. Peters Basilica in Rome. These  indulgences had greater benefits than ever before applying to almost any sin, including adultery and theft. All other indulgence preaching was prohibited for the eight years this program was active. Special indulgence preachers were even sent out and given strict instructions on how to be most effective.

On October 31, 1517 after nailing the debate theses written in Latin to the church door as was university tradition, Luther sent a letter with these debate points to the Archbishop of Mainz, Albert of Brandenburg, under whose authority the indulgences were being sold.  The theses were printed and distributed to interested parties. Yet these were commercial printers and no copyright laws existed so they made extras either because they were hoping to sell them or someone paid for them.

 These theses appeared in a four-page pamphlet in Basel and as placards in Leipzig and Nuremburg.. In all, several hundred copies of Luthor's theses were printed in Latin throughout Germany in 1517. Kaspar Nutzel in Nuremberg translated them into German later that year, and copies of this translation were sent to several interested parties across Germany but it was not necessarily printed.  (references at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninety-five_Theses)

Archbishop Albert, on the advice of his advisors at the University of Mainz, decided Luther should be prohibited from preaching against indulgences in accordance with the instructions in the Papal bull sent out by Pope Leo. Albert passed on this request to the authorities in Rome who agreed that Luthor was a threat because he was challenging Papal authority. In February 1518, Pope Leo asked the head of the Luther's religious order, the Augustinian Hermits, to convince him to stop spreading his ideas about indulgences. Just in case Sylvester Mazzolinin was appointed to write an opinion which would and could be used in a trial against him. He wrote "A Dialogue against Martin Luther's Presumptuous Theses concerning the Power of the Pope," which focused on Luther's questioning of the pope's authority rather than his complaints about indulgence preaching.  This Papal opposition is what really gained Luthor a following.

Luthor refused to back down and the result was the establishment of anti-Papal Protestantism throughout northern Europe. Yet Protestantism became as dogmatic and intolerant as Catholics. This was for two reasons:

The first reason is that the Bible is often contradictory with the result that Protestants could never come to a common conclusion on the truth it was supposed to contain. This is why so many Protestant denominations exist today.  Each ended up picking out certain lines in the Bible to believe while  ignoring others.

The second reason is that society was not ready for diversity. Every secular ruler believed that social stability could only be achieved if everyone had the same ideology. This was further supported by both Protestant and Catholic officials who believed errors in belief risked the death of a person's soul. So they were quick to cut out heretics from society like a surgeon cuts out a cancer in order to save others. 

References

Luthor by Eikon Film and NFP Teleart (2003) Movie directed by Eric Till and stars Joseph Fiennes in the title role. (Highly recommended, Rarely does a movie both capture the feelings of the time and be historically accurate.) Online at: https://www.amazon.com/Luther-Joseph-Fiennes/dp/B001EMYRHU

(March 27, 2025) After the Reformation, the development of science (and resulting industrial advanced) moved to northern Europe. Significantly, these were also the most recent Pagan lands. The Catholic church imposed thought control at the Council of Trent which was a series of meetings held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent, northern Italy. It ruled in 1546:

The council of Trent in 1546 ruled that

• ” . . . no one, relying on his own skill, shall, – in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, – wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, – whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures, – hath held and doth hold,” (Trent, Session 4, “Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books”)

The scripture in this case was the Latin Vulgate and not any earlier Greek version. So while salvation could be gained by faith as the Protestants claimed, it could also be gained by merit via good works and participating in various Catholic sacraments and sacrament equivalences (including indulgences).

So the Reformation caused the Catholic church to compromise by admitting an authoritative source of knowledge (the Bible) existed external to itself yet it retained its control over thinking by claiming that only it could accurately discern its the Bible's secrets.