European History in the Secondary School
D.C. KNOWLTON, PH.D., Editor.
THE RENAISSANCE.
What Was the Renaissance?
Before opening the discussion with the class there should be a clear conception in the mind of the teacher as to what the Renaissance really was. Is it to be regarded, for example, as an era, embracing within its limits the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism, the Hundred Years’ War, the struggle for Italy and the rise of Spain, and ending finally with Luther’s attack on the Church in the sixteenth century; or is it to be restricted to a narrower field, marked largely by a revival of art, literature, and science and followed by an age of discovery? “The period of the Renaissance,” says one writer, “in its proper and most comprehensive meaning, may be regarded as the age in which the social and political system of the Middle Ages came to an end, in which medieval restrictions upon liberty of thought and inquiry were abolished.” He then proceeds to explain that it includes all the events which lie between 1273 and 1494, or, in other words, two centuries and a quarter of European development. A little further on, however, he refers to the “two movements with which the Renaissance has been preeminently and sometimes exclusively associated—the revival of letters and the revival of art,”[2] and discusses it from this second point of view, showing how even with this narrower conception of the movement it may properly include the reform of religion, the extension of geographical knowledge and new discoveries in the realms of science, both these conceptions were evidently before the minds of the committee of the New England History Teachers’ Association as they framed their syllabus. The efforts of the secondary teacher must of necessity be confined to the Renaissance as a revival of letters and art. This does not preclude the teacher from regarding the events from 1273 to 1494 as symptoms of changes which were bringing the Middle Ages to a close and inaugurating a new era. In fact, these events may serve as an introduction to the Renaissance proper, as has already been shown.[3]
The simple question, “What was the Renaissance?” will serve to open the subject, and the various answers which may be drawn from the students can be made to fit the teacher’s conception of the movement; or, better still, the questions may be so framed as to draw from the students themselves the teacher’s preconceived notion of what is to be understood by the term. At the close of the discussion, the teacher’s definition or conception, framed in simple language and dictated to the class will fix it clearly in the student’s mind and serve as a guide to further study and discussion. The following conception, which is made up of statements borrowed from several sources, will serve as an illustration: “The Renaissance was an intellectual and scientific transformation of Europe, a great and fundamental change in thought and taste, in books, buildings and pictures, for which the world had long been preparing and in which we still participate.”
When Was the Renaissance?
This question suggests a second. “When did this movement begin and when did it end?” This question may be treated separately or regarded as a fundamental part of the first query. If an English and a German Renaissance are to be recognized, as well as an Italian Renaissance, care must be taken to select the dates accordingly. Following the plan of some of the text-books, it might be well in this connection to point out the fact that, although the movement began in Italy in the middle of the fourteenth century and lasted there until about 1550, its dates for England were approximately 1500 to 1600, and for Germany, 1450 to 1520.