Baroque Period (1600-1750)
General Background
The years between 1600 and 1750 were full of contradiction, change, and conflict in Europe. The future would be shaped by the far reaching consequences of war. These conflicts pitted mainly the northern countries (Belgium, Germany, England, Sweden) against the Catholic kingdoms of the south (France, Spain, Austria), and further accentuated the pre-existing cultural differences between Northern and Southern Europe. However, tremendous scientific, philosophical, and artistic accomplishments that constitute the practical foundation of modern civilization flourished side by side with continual warfare, political instability, and religious fervor, bordering on fanaticism. Some of the most significant events of this period are:
•The Scientific Revolution: A scientific method of inquiry and the separation of science and philosophy from religious dogma were established. Science and mathematics influencenearly every aspect of life.
•The Protestant Reformation: Protestantism was formed and influenced political, economic, social, and cultural structures. Protestants rejectedthe use of visual art and emotionally charged music in the church.
•The Catholic Counter-Reformation: In response to the Reformation, an outpouring of exuberant sculpture, architecture, painting, and music to promulgate and support the power and doctrine of the Papacy in Rome and the Catholic Church was created. The Jesuit order led the Counter-Reformation campaign.
•The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648): The Holy Roman Empire, headed spiritually by the Pope and temporarily by the Emperor, was dissolved, essentially establishing modern Europe as a community of sovereign states.
•Colonization: Large areas of the Americas ...
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...Galileo, Kepler and many other giants of science, and laid the groundwork for classical mechanics—the laws of gravitation and motion—in his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687). René Descartes 1596-1650), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), and Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) advocated the separation of philosophy and science from religious dogma; Francis Bacon (1561-1626), John Locke (1632-1704), and David Hume (1711-1776) in England established the foundation of the scientific system of observation, experimentation, and testing of hypotheses. Montesquieu (1689-1755) proposed the theory of the separation of powers, while Voltaire—pen name of Francoise-Marie Arouet (1694-1778) and great admirer of Newton—through his satirical writings and plays criticized Church dogma and championed civil liberties, including freedom of religion.
The Protestant Reformation in Europe caused conflicts between the Catholics and Protestants, but ultimately ended up in unity. The first religious war was fought between the Schmalkaldic League and Charles V. That war ended up in the Peace of Augsburg, which let each German state choose their leader, and all of the people
The protestant reformation, Protestants, and the Counter Reformation were all contributors. The Protestant Reformation was the want of changes from the people of the Roman Catholic Church. People wanted an end to the corruption, and some people like Martin Luther died for what they believed. After the needs of the people weren’t acted upon they started their own protestant church. Keep in mind that was not the initial plan but they were eventually forced into doing it. According to……. The Protestants also had an important role because they started everything. They started the reformation and kept going until they got their want. Some of the people were Martin Luther, John Calvin, King Henry VIII of England, Charles I of Spain, John Wyclif, and Jan Hus. Everyone had great contributions to the western worldview. According to…………. Last but not least the Counter Reformation also contributed to the worldview. It was a group of people against the protestant reformation. They fought the Protestants and were sometimes working for the Roman Catholic Church. These people believed that the church was fine as it is. Still due to the splitting of the churches and giving choice in faith gave people more understanding. This also lowered the selling of indulgences and other money making ideas from church officials. Less corruptions was seen which was
The renaissance and the reformation are the beginning of the golden age of Europe. Many economic, religious, and cultural changes occurred during this time period. The economic and cultural rise of Italian city-states, the recentralization of government in northern Europe, and the separation of the Roman Catholic Church into different Catholic and Protestant groups were important achievements for Europe during this time. The renaissance and the reformation were not only the beginning of the modern western world, but also set the stage for the European rise in global colonization, which gave way to the birth of our glorious nation.
During the fourteenth century, the Renaissance was notable for its development from medieval life and values dominated by the Church toward the abstract ethics of civilization. Instead of the perception stressed by religion that emphasized preparation for the after life, the enlightened citizens of the middle class, became interested in individuals success and emphasized life in this world, rather than the afterlife in which the Catholic church emphasized. This encouraged individuals to surmount in a wide variety of grounds portraying their knowledge because of their strong beliefs in all aspects ranging from art, politics, and personal life. Renaissance thinkers were inspired by the ancient Greeks and Romans instead of medieval life because it was portrayed as undeveloped. The textbook a History in The Making discusses these changes and writes, “A new understanding of the motions of heavens and of mechanic on the earth developed among experimenters in natural philosophy, that is, what came to be called science” (484). This portrayed how the scientific revolution changed and impacted attitudes within Europe in regards to Science and knowledge. The Secularization tainted the traditional scientific method of truth and search for non religious foundations, emphasizing the new doors that had been opened for this
During the sixteenth and seventeenth the two dominant faiths in Europe was Protestant and the Catholic. Both considered each other's faith as heresy against the true form of practicing Christianity. Therefore both wanted the cease of existence of each other. War would have been inevitable if both sides were able to accept each other and live in a compromised state. However, I don’t believe this would have been possible especially not back then. Since people tend to categorize each other based on different characteristics, in this case its faith. Neither sides would be able to consider each other as equals. The winning of the battles was not based on whose practice of religion is the right way, it was based on who had more weapons or people to fight on their side. In a personal perspective I don’t understand the purpose of the war. The Protestant and the Catholic both come from Christianity. They do have some differences in their rituals and practices however, they are still the same faith. I thought the war was originally because of the Pope or the vatican because the existence of the protestant is a threat to the Papal. Since they don't hold allegion to the Pope. Would it be possible that the Papal is what caused Catholic to be against the Protestant faith so much. I believe the protestant also had people on their side to enforce the hatred such as Calvin toward the
The growth of European absolutism led to many different types of war and call for independence. One of the effects of absolutism was the European Civil War. This war, starting at 1642 and ending at 1649, was between the supporters of King Charles I and his opponents; he was an absolute monarch. An absolute monarch was a king or queen that had total control within their states' boundaries; this made him do whatever he wanted in England and it angered some people. King Charles had offended the Puritans by turning the kingdom to Anglicanism, and he offended the Parliament by putting them away from session because they bothered him about a petition he signed but ignored. All of those factor led to the English Civil War.
In the seventeenth century, both England and France were going through religious and political turmoil. The religious problems were associated with the religions protestant and Calvinists coming out and fighting to be accepted. One of the political turmoils was that both countries were being changed how they were being run, the amount of money had, spent and what was accepted. One of the biggest problems for England and France was the thirty years’ war, which began with conflicts between Catholics and Protestants within the Holy Roman Empire, it involved most European states. The war ended with many central European lands in ruins and the balance of power shifted toward France, England, and the Dutch Republic. France for years had to raise
The Protestant Reformation, also known as the Reformation, was the 16th-century religious, governmental, scholarly and cultural upheaval that disintegrated Catholic Europe, setting in place the structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era (Staff, 2009). The Catholic Church begun to dominate local law and practice almost everywhere starting in the late fourteenth century. The Catholic Church held a tight hold on the daily lives of the people invading just about every part of it. Some people of this time would decide to stand up to the church and attempt to change the way it operated and make it release some of its control. These people who spoke out against the church came to be known as Protestants. The Protestants
"The growth of commerce and industry led to the technological advances, which in turn stimulated, and were stimulated by science.” (p. 403) The European scientific revolution was fueled by the blending of “liberal” and “servile” arts, in other words, science and technology. Because of the European expansion taking place throughout the world, new commerce and industries were advancing, creating the need for new technology and science. The theories and inventions that Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton provided were the fist major advances during the scientific revolution, and perhaps were the most profound.
The Thirty Years war (1618-1648) was a devastating one to be fought on the German soil before World War II. The Reformation that was started a century before had shattered the unity of Catholic Christendom. The Protestant church was divided into Lutheranism and Calvinism due to Reformation. The governing class of German states stood for Lutheranism. Martin Luther was the founder of Lutheranism. His teachings freed them from the interference of foreign Pope Sweden and Denmark –that were the countries that followed Lutheranism. John Calvin was the founder of Calvinism. The countries which followed Calvinism are Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Austria. These two groups became a threat to Catholicism which led to Counter-Reformation. The Jesuits were most influential in Spain and Austria. The Thirty Years war took place in the name of God. But it’s only aim is to dominate, capture and suppress the opponent. There are also some other factors which led to the Thirty Years war. In 1618, the Habsburg dynasty was the major power in Europe. It ruled most part of Central Europe including Kings in Portugal and Spain. The elder most in the hierarchy of power is king and the youngest is in the House of Austria. Spain and France had political rivalry for past three centuries. The royal dynasty Bourbon belonged to France. The antagonism between Habsburg and Bourbon remained the most important
The protestant reformation of 16th century had both: immediate and long term effects. Thus, we can see that it was a revolution of understanding the essence of religion, and of what God is. The protestant reformation is said to a religious movement. However, it also influenced the economical, political and social life of people. The most global, short term effect of the reformation was the reevaluation of beliefs, and, as a result, the loss of authority of the Holy Roman Empire. The long term effects were: the emergence of new heretical movements, the declining of papacy, thus the reevaluation of people’s view on the church and life values.
At the start of the sixteenth century, the Reformation had put an ungracious end to the dependent unification that had prevailed under the Roman Catholic Church. In response to the growing sense of corruption in the church, the reformation began. Many people began opposing views of how Christian practices were expressed, which led to the formation and spread of Protestantism. While the Pope is head of the Catholic Church, Protestantism is a general term that refers to Christianity that is not subject to papal authority. (1.)
The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century is one of the most complex movements in European history since the fall of the Roman Empire. The Reformation truly ends the Middle Ages and begins a new era in the history of Western Civilization. The Reformation ended the religious unity of Europe and ushered in 150 years of religious warfare. By the time the conflicts had ended, the political and social geography in the west had fundamentally changed. The Reformation would have been revolutionary enough of itself, but it coincided in time with the opening of the Western Hemisphere to the Europeans and the development of firearms as effective field weapons. It coincided, too, with the spread of Renaissance ideals from Italy and the first stirrings of the Scientific Revolution. Taken together, these developments transformed Europe.
The Thirty Years War was a series of conflicts, not-knowingly involving most European countries from 1618 to 1648. The war, which was fought mainly in Germany, was started when Bohemian Protestants furiously attacked the Holy Roman Emperor in terms to impose a restriction on their religious and civil liberties. By understanding the Thirty Years War, you will notice the notable religious, political and social changes. The changes paved the religious and political maps of Europe. Not only did this war affect the religious and political demographic, it caused populations to perish and lose large amounts of their goods. What was known as a religious battle, turned out to be a political feud in competition of which state has the greater power affecting men, women, soldiers and civilians. “[The bohemians] had no idea that their violent deed would set off a chain reaction of armed conflict that would last thirty years and later be called Europe’s “first world war” of the modern era.” When the war ended, the lands were defiled and over 5 million people were killed.
The revolution brought about many radical changes and ideas that helped to strengthen it and the scientists that helped to bring it about became significant persons in history. "The emergence of a scientific community is one of the distinguishing marks of the Scientific Revolution."2 It was this form of community that gave a foundation for open thinking and observing throughout the sixteenth century and through twenty-first century. It was the first revolution that had more of a dedication to the ongoing process of science than of a goal to achieve scientific knowledge.3