Characteristics of the Period.
This is the time of the revival of science; the revival of learning had set in about two centuries earlier. Europe was now repeatedly devastated by religious wars (the revolt of the Netherlands, the wars of the League in France, the Thirty Years' war, the civil war in England). Learning was still mainly classical and scholastic; nearly every writer whom we shall have occasion to name had been educated at a university, and was able to read and write Latin. Two great extensions of knowledge helped to widen the thoughts of men. It became known for the first time that our planet is an insignificant member of a great solar system, and that Christendom is both in extent and population but a small fraction of the habitable globe.