Name: Hector Torres Block: B Date: 5/10/2023 - 5/23/2023
Title: Renaissance means “Rebirth” in French. How did changes in European society and attitudes lead to the Renaissance?
The Renaissance has gone down in history for its development of education, art, and literature. Leading up to the fourteenth century, Europe suffered centuries of economic, intellectual, and cultural decline known to some as the dark ages. This decline took place after the fall of Ancient Rome (476 CE) and the Ancient Greek Empire (146 CE) where many aspects of societal culture were lost. This decline was due to several factors including great famines and the restriction of education. Great famines lowered
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These ways of thinking and innovations gave the increasingly wealthy population an outlet to spend their money and gave the increasingly enlightened population new ideas and thoughts to digest. Printed paper is an example of a commodity that helped spread ideals and wealth because, “After the invention of a modern-style printing press by Johannes Gutenberg of Germany in the mid-15th century, many people opened print shops. In 1476, William Caxton established the first press in England. Such works as printed Bibles, religious texts, humanist texts, and classical Latin texts emerged from those shops (Tschen-Emmons).” This invention of the printing press allowed wealthier individuals to purchase non-essential goods like cheaper Bibles, which in turn helped spread the ideals of Christianity. Also, for the first time in history, Bibles were written in languages other than Latin. This allowed the Renaissance to spread further as more people could consume new values. Due to the Catholics' fear of the growing Protestant religion and in an attempt to fight back, the Catholic Church allowed Bibles to be written in new languages and agreed to some adjustments to their old-timey ways. These include the sponsoring of Catholic artwork. Many great Catholic art pieces such as, “The Last Supper” and “The Creation of Adam” were produced during the Renaissance. These pieces allowed the shrinking illiterate population to comprehend the religion of Christianity. The Renaissance was caused by prompt population growth, urbanization, boosted social mobility, increased enlightenment, and