The late european middle ages and the renaissance

URBAN SOCIETY IN THE LATE MEDIEVAL EUROPE
Peasant rebellions followed the Black Death, all of them where crushed. The Jacquerie of 1358 in France burned castles, destroyed chapels etc. The noblestook revenge but it didn’t work. The Guilds were medieval urban organizations that controlled what was made, for what price aNJnd by whom. They ensured economic security for their members.
THE RISEOF THE ITALIAN CITY-STATES
Beginning in the fourteenth Century, a new spirit manifested itself in Euope hmong the educated classes. It was called the Renaissance, or rebirth.
1) A change ineconomic and social conditions.
2) Artistic and cultural movement that was founded on that change.
Began in Northern Italian city-states such as Florence, Venice, Milan and Pisa. Italians were leading theway in innovations – scientific, artistic, and economic. They were leading bankers, mariners, scientists and engineers.
THE RENAISSANCE ATTITUDE
- Individualism: wealthy men and women believedthat the age-old christian emphasis on personal humility was wrong. As wealthy and succesful people they did not fear to set themselves apart from the masses and were supremely confidente that theyCould.
- Secularism: Increasing secularismin Italy meant that the focus of the upper classes’ attention shifted steadily away from the eternal to worldly affairs. Renaissance men and women descovered thejoy of life in the here and the now.
- Revival of classical values: The ancient civilizations of the Greeks became the focus of artistic and cultural interest.
THE NORTHERN RENAISSANCE
Carried toGermany and the Low Countries by students returning from Studies with the great Italian artists and writers. The term humanismo is often applied to the Northern Rennaisance and its leading figurs.They were scholars who were painfully aware of the corruption of church and society and wished to remedy it by gradualist means, through reforms grounded in the ancient Christian teachings. Put great...