HIS109Y1 Lecture 9: Lecture 09 - Oct 14 Notes
Ibraheem Aziz Oct 14/2015
HIS109Y – L0101 Lec 09
Northern Humanism
• New groups of individuals were formed based upon a pagan Roman culture applied in
Renaissance contexts
o Example of Cicero (republican, successful lawyer/orator/philosopher)
o Role model for Florentine merchants
o Secular movement/separation of Church and state
• French invasion of 1494 ended Italian Renaissance
• A more aristocratic Renaissance developed in Northern Europe
• Rather than independent city-states, large territorial monarchies and hierarchical kingdoms
existed in the North
o Powerful memory of feudalism
o Feudalists were overtaken by kings, merchants, townspeople, taxation, infrastructure
o Greatest status was still held by feudal descendants – power and land equaled influence
• System of government in which the law was the highest authority became a new model and idea
• Goods from East and Italy were sold in Northern towns
o Northern towns and cities began to grow and develop due to mercantile influence
o These towns provided support to king – got independence and prospered with a
powerful central authority that could subdue the feudal nobility
• Tradition of secular education in the North had stopped in the Middle Ages
o Religious education meant that only the first estate (clergy) was educated in the North
• Tradition of rule meant that rule in the North was moved into a powerful monarchy
o Philology and textual editing became important as Roman works were carefully
scrutinized for veritable elements
o Type of text that was written constituted the only real change for Northern Humanism
as opposed to Italian Renaissance
• Secular tensions and the growth of humanist scholars led to a Christian humanist in the North –
advocated for a Renaissance-type humanism within a Christian context
o Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536) was the illegitimate son of a priest
▪ Educated at a Christian humanist institute
▪ Erasmus learned Latin and a deep piety connected to salvation for himself and
the community
▪ Got a job as a clerical secretary, educated in Paris as a monk
▪ Interested in scholarship, disliked scholastic philosophy (Aristotelian logic used
to explain religious theology) – such as ontological argument for the existence
of God
▪ Known as the most brilliant writer of his era – saw a Church separated from
simplicity and obsessed with hierarchy, theology
▪ Desired a return to Christian antiquity rather than Roman pagan antiquity
o In Northern Humanism, the Church was seen as a separate institution and more distant
than Italy
o Erasmus wrote the Praise of Folly – satire of clerics and portrayal of churchmen as
hypocrites
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