RENAISSANCE HUMANISM

1. Disillusionment with feudalism and church
1. Peasant revolts

i. Jacquerie – France

ii. Peasants – England

iii. Ciompi – Italy

2. Heresies

i. Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1327)

ii. John Wyclif (1330 – 84)

iii. John Huss (1369 – 1415)

2. Culture of LMA also seen as protest against medieval assumptions/styles
3. Renaissance (rebirth)
1. Italy (1300 – 1500) or Western Europe (LMA)
2. Interest in classics, individualism, secularism, reason
4. High Middle Ages (HMA)
1. Growth of secular education (universities)
2. Scholastics – classical writers relevant for study of scriptures; Reason could prove Christian principles
3. 7 Liberal Arts

i. Trivium – grammar, rhetoric, logic

ii. Quadrivium – arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music

4. Disputation (rhetoric and logic) main teaching tool
4. Italy Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) 1304 – 74 - felt classics had contemporary relevance medieval scholars had ignored
5. Studia Humanitatis
1. 15^th Century – New Liberal Arts

i. Grammar – ancient Latin and Greek

1. Study of philology

2. Textual criticism

3. Valla, 15^th Century scholar – “Donation of Constantine” (forgery)

ii. History – accepted past on own terms

1. Showed ability of man to triumph over fate

2. Suggested solutions for contemporary problems

iii. Rhetoric – practical and useful modes of eloquence

iv. Moral Philosophy – a serious author was moral teacher

1. Vergerio (1249 – 1420) defined Liberal Arts as studies “worthy of a free man”

2. Helped men “attain and practice virtue” (Civic Humanism)

v. Poetry – gave eloquence to convince men to do good Mirandola (1463 – 93) “Oration on the Dignity of Man”

https://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/oration.html

2. Ideal Renaissance man/woman (From Book of the Courtier)