Renaissance: Catalyst to the Protestant Reformation

The Renaissance: A Threshold to Protestant Reformation

The period of the Renaissance was an important era of development in the world religiously, artistically, and scientifically. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, important technologies such as the printing press contributed greatly in helping advance the intelligence of all humans. A broad humanistic sense began to expand throughout Europe, giving a new vision of the human being as the center of the universe and not as something mystical or divine. With a combination of the technological and social changes taking place at the same time, the Renaissance’s advancements placed the driving force for the protestant reformation to occur. The Protestant reformation was a new era of religious revolution that brought radical changes in the vision that society had of the Catholic Church. During this period, not only did the religion change, other areas such as the economy and the development of social interactions were reformed and

Humanism revolves around the central idea of learning more about the world and not so much about religion. Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466–1536, was the most important Christian humanist. 4 Despite disagreeing with some of the theories of Luther, Erasmus was a supporter of the Reformation. One of his principal works was The Praise of Folly, where he utilized a satirical language to criticize the church and the society in general5.

General intelligence flourished with the Humanism movement due to its teachings of mathematics, literature, and science to the people. The importance of having good manners grew to where people began speaking more politely. The desire for more information about the world led more people to take scholarly routes in life instead of just being happy and settling for religious stories. The common man’s vernacular turned into a more intelligent, advanced