In a time when faith and hard labor kept the majority of society alive, the introduction of reason by the Enlightenment was initially perceived as a threat. People had focused on their faiths and grasped the traditions and rituals of their dogmas. The Enlightenment introduced the possibility of faith and reason coinciding and cooperating to form a more civilized and equal society to replace the Old Regime, and the changes lasted far after the period of the Enlightenment.
Leading up to the Enlightenment
Prior to the Enlightenment, England and France instituted Old Regime societies in which three distinct classes of people embraced religion as the foundation of their lives. Each caste had a different lifestyle, with the clergy enjoying the upper class, the nobility in the position of influence, and the vast majority of the people trapped in the hardship of the Third Estate. The clergy was different in the Protestant Church than in the Catholic Church because the Catholics had only to obey the Pope while the Protestant Church was run by the monarch. None of the clergy paid many royal taxes, but still owned much of the land. Since the clergy was a high class, it was beneficial for some of the offspring of the nobility to join the clergy in order to receive higher status. The nobility as a whole controlled much money and power while maintaining constant struggle with the crown over governmental power. The Third Estate worked to live and had no freedom except for their religious beliefs. They believed that they were at the mercy of the land and of an overpowering Creator.
The Old Regime was characterized in large part by conflicts between countries and within countries over religious matters. It w...
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...ove their minds. European society that was once stuck in the Old Regime lifestyle grew in many facets with the introduction of reason and enlightenment. Although initially reluctant, the societies of the Old Regime embraced the thoughts of the Enlightenment, the conflict between faith and reason began to subside as people learned that they could practice both.
References
1 Donald Kagan. The Western Heritage Brief Edition:Volume II Since 1648. (Upper
Saddle River: Pretence Hall, 1999), 313.
2 Kagan 298
3 Perry Rogers. Aspects of Western Civilization: Problems and Sources in History 3rd
ed. (Upper Saddle River: Pretence Hall, 1997), 12.
4 Rogers, 15.
5 Kagan, 317.
6 Peter Gay. Age of Enlightenment. (New York: Time Life Books, 1966), 32.
7 Kagan, 402.
8 Kagan, 329.
9 Gay, 56.
10 Gay, 54.
11 Rogers, 102.
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