Early European History Part 107

A very different sort of writer was the Frenchman, Montaigne. He lives to- day as the author of one hundred and seven essays, very delightful in style and full of wit and wisdom. Montaigne really invented the essay, a form of literature in which he has had many imitators.

CHAUCER, 1340(?)-1400 A.D.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who has been called the "morning star" of the English Renaissance, was a story-teller in verse. His _Canterbury Tales_ are supposed to be told by a company of pilgrims, as they journey from London to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. [16] Chaucer describes freshly and with unfailing good spirits the life of the middle and upper cla.s.ses. He does not reveal, any more than his contemporary Froissart, the labor and sorrows of the down-trodden peasantry. But Chaucer was a true poet, and his name stands high in England's long roll of men of letters.

SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616 A.D.

This survey of the national authors of the Renaissance may fitly close with William Shakespeare, whose genius transcended national boundaries and made him a citizen of all the world. His life is known to us only in barest outline. Born at Stratford-on-Avon, of humble parentage, he attended the village grammar school, where he learned "small Latin and less Greek", went to London as a youth, and became an actor and a playwright. He prospered, made money both from his acting and the sale of his plays, and at the age of forty-four retired to Stratford for the rest of his life. Here he died eight years later, and here his grave may still be seen in the village church. [17] During his residence in London he wrote, in whole or in part, thirty-six or thirty-seven dramas, both tragedies and comedies. They were not collected and published until several years after his death. Shakespeare's plays were read and praised by his contemporaries, but it has remained for modern men to see in him one who ranks with Homer, Vergil, Dante, and Goethe among the great poets of the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE From the copper plate engraved by Martin Droeshout as frontispiece to the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's works in 1623 A.D. In this engraving the head is far too large for the body and the dress is out of perspective. The only other authentic likeness of Shakespeare is the bust over his grave in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford on Avon]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON The house in which Shakespeare was born has been much altered in exterior appearance since the poet's day. The timber framework, the floors, most of the interior walls, and the cellars remain, however, substantially unchanged. The ill.u.s.tration shows the appearance of the house before the restoration made in 1857 A.D.]

PERSONALITY IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

Renaissance poets and prose writers revealed themselves in their books. In the same way the sculptors and painters of the Renaissance worked out their own ideas and emotions in their masterpieces. This personal note affords a sharp contrast to the anonymity of the Middle Ages. We do not know the authors of the _Song of Roland_, the _Nibelungenlied_, and _Reynard the Fox_, any more than we know the builders of the Gothic cathedrals. Medieval literature subordinated the individual; that of the Renaissance expressed the sense of individuality and man's interest in himself. It was truly "humanistic."

215. THE RENAISSANCE IN EDUCATION

HUMANISM AND EDUCATION

The universities of the Middle Ages emphasized scholastic philosophy, though in some inst.i.tutions law and medicine also received much attention.

Greek, of course, was not taught, the vernacular languages of Europe were not studied, and neither science nor history enjoyed the esteem of the learned. The Renaissance brought about a partial change in this curriculum. The cla.s.sical languages and literatures, after some opposition, gained an entrance into university courses and displaced scholastic philosophy as the chief subject of instruction. From the universities the study of the "humanities" descended to the lower schools, where they still hold a leading place.

VITTORINO DA FELTRE, 1378-1446 A.D.

An Italian humanist, Vittorino da Feltre, was the pioneer of Renaissance education. In his private school at Mantua, the "House of Delight," as it was called, Vittorino aimed to develop at the same time the body, mind, and character of his pupils, so as to fit them to "serve G.o.d in Church and State." Accordingly, he gave much attention to religious instruction and also set a high value on athletics. The sixty or seventy young men under his care were taught to hunt and fish, to run and jump, to wrestle and fence, to walk gracefully, and above all things to be temperate. For intellectual training he depended on the Latin cla.s.sics as the best means of introducing students to the literature, art, and philosophy of ancient times. Vittorino's name is not widely known to-day; he left no writings, preferring, as he said, to live in the lives of his pupils; but there is scarcely a modern teacher who does not consciously or unconsciously follow his methods. More than anyone else, he is responsible for the educational system which has prevailed in Europe almost to the present day.

A "CLa.s.sICAL EDUCATION"

It cannot be said that the influence of humanism on education was wholly good. Henceforth the Greek and Latin languages and literatures became the chief instruments of culture. Educators neglected the great world of nature and of human life which lay outside the writings of the ancients.

This "bookishness" formed a real defect of Renaissance systems of training.

COMENIUS, 1592-1671 A.D.

A Moravian bishop named Comenius, who gave his long life almost wholly to teaching, stands for a reaction against humanistic education. He proposed that the vernacular tongues, as well as the cla.s.sics, should be made subjects of study. For this purpose he prepared a reading book, which was translated into a dozen European languages, and even into Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Comenius also believed that the curriculum should include the study of geography, world history, and government, and the practice of the manual arts. He was one of the first to advocate the teaching of science.

Perhaps his most notable idea was that of a national system of education, reaching from primary grades to the university. "Not only," he writes, "are the children of the rich and n.o.ble to be drawn to school, but all alike, rich and poor, boys and girls, in great towns and small, down to the country villages." The influence of this Slavic teacher is more and more felt in modern systems of education.

216. THE SCIENTIFIC RENAISSANCE

HUMANISM AND SCIENCE

The Middle Ages were not by any means ignorant of science, [18] but its study naturally received a great impetus when the Renaissance brought before educated men all that the Greeks and Romans had done in mathematics, physics, astronomy, medicine, and other subjects. The invention of printing also fostered the scientific revival by making it easy to spread knowledge abroad in every land. The pioneers of Renaissance science were Italians, but students in France, England, Germany, and other countries soon took up the work of enlightenment.

COPERNICUS 1473-1543 A.D.

The names of some Renaissance scientists stand as landmarks in the history of thought. The first place must be given to Copernicus, the founder of modern astronomy. He was a Pole, but lived many years in Italy. Patient study and calculation led him to the conclusion that the earth turns upon its own axis, and, together with the planets, revolves around the sun. The book in which he announced this conclusion did not appear until the very end of his life. A copy of it reached him on his deathbed.

THE COPERNICAN THEORY

Medieval astronomers had generally accepted the Ptolemaic system. [19]

Some students before Copernicus had indeed suggested that the earth and planets might rotate about a central sun, but he first gave reasons for such a belief. The new theory met much opposition, not only in the universities, which clung to the time-honored Ptolemaic system, but also among theologians, who thought that it contradicted many statements in the Bible. Moreover, people could not easily reconcile themselves to the idea that the earth, instead of being the center of the universe, is only one member of the solar system, that it is, in fact, only a mere speck of cosmic dust.

GALILEO, 1564-1642 A.D.

An Italian scientist, Galileo, made one of the first telescopes--it was about as powerful as an opera gla.s.s--and turned it on the heavenly bodies with wonderful results. He found the sun moving unmistakably on its axis, Venus showing phases according to her position in relation to the sun, Jupiter accompanied by revolving moons, or satellites, and the Milky Way composed of a mult.i.tude of separate stars. Galileo rightly believed that these discoveries confirmed the theory of Copernicus.

KEPLER, 1571-1630 A.D.

Another man of genius, the German Kepler, worked out the mathematical laws which govern the movements of the planets. He made it clear that the planets revolve around sun in elliptical instead of circular orbits.

Kepler's investigations afterwards led to the discovery of the principle of gravitation.

VESALIUS, 1514-1564 A.D., AND HARVEY, 1578-1657 A.D.

Two other scientists did epochal work in a field far removed from astronomy. Vesalius, a Fleming, who studied in Italian medical schools, gave to the world the first careful description of the human body based on actual dissection. He was thus the founder of human anatomy. Harvey, an Englishman, after observing living animals, announced the discovery of the circulation of the blood. He thereby founded human physiology.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Vesalius, Harvey, and their fellow workers built up the scientific method. In the Middle Ages students had mostly been satisfied to accept what Aristotle and other philosophers had said, without trying to prove their statements. [20] Kepler, for instance, was the first to disprove the Aristotelian idea that, as all perfect motion is circular, therefore the heavenly bodies must move in circular orbits.

Similarly, the world had to wait many centuries before Harvey showed Aristotle's error in supposing that the blood arose in the liver, went thence to the heart, and by the veins was conducted over the body. The new scientific method rested on observation and experiment. Students learned at length to take nothing for granted, to set aside all authority, and to go straight to nature for their facts. As Lord Bacon, [21] one of Shakespeare's contemporaries and a severe critic of the old scholasticism, declared, "All depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed upon the facts of nature, and so receiving their images simply as they are, for G.o.d forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world." Modern science, to which we owe so much, is a product of the Renaissance.

217. THE ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE

AN ECONOMIC CHANGE

Thus far the Renaissance has been studied as an intellectual and artistic movement, which did much to liberate the human mind and brought the Middle Ages to an end in literature, in art, and in science. It is necessary, however, to consider the Renaissance era from another point of view.

During this time an economic change of vast significance was taking place in rural life all over western Europe. We refer to the decline and ultimate extinction of medieval serfdom.

DECLINE OF SERFDOM

Serfdom imposed a burden only less heavy than the slavery which it had displaced. The serf, as has been shown, [22] might not leave the manor in which he was born, he might not sell his holdings of land, and, finally, he had to give up a large part of his time to work without pay for the lord of the manor. This system of forced labor was at once unprofitable to the lord and irksome to his serfs. After the revival of trade and industry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had brought more money into circulation, [23] the lord discovered how much better it was to hire men to work for him, as he needed them, instead of depending on serfs who shirked their tasks as far as possible. The latter, in turn, were glad to pay the lord a fixed sum for the use of land, since now they could devote themselves entirely to its cultivation. Both parties gained by an arrangement which converted the manorial lord into a landlord and the serf into a free tenant-farmer paying rent.

THE "BLACK DEATH"

The emanc.i.p.ation of the peasantry was hastened, strangely enough, as the result of perhaps the most terrible calamity that has ever afflicted mankind. About the middle of the fourteenth century a pestilence of Asiatic origin, now known to have been the bubonic plague, reached the West. [24] The "Black Death" so called because among its symptoms were dark patches all over the body, moved steadily across Europe. The way for its ravages had been prepared by the unhealthful conditions of ventilation and drainage in towns and cities. After attacking Greece, Sicily, Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the plague entered England in 1349 A.D. and within less than two years swept away probably half the population of that country. The mortality elsewhere was enormous, one estimate setting it as high as twenty-five millions for all Europe.

EFFECTS OF THE "BLACK DEATH"

The pestilence in England, as in other countries, caused a great scarcity of labor. For want of hands to bring in the harvest, crops rotted on the ground, while sheep and cattle, with no one to care for them, strayed through the deserted fields. The free peasants who survived demanded and received higher wages. Even the serfs, whose labor was now more valued, found themselves in a better position. The lord of a manor, in order to keep his laborers, would often allow them to subst.i.tute money payments for personal services. When the serfs got no concessions, they frequently took to flight and hired themselves to the highest bidder.

FIRST STATUTE OF LABORERS, 1351 A.D.

The governing cla.s.ses of England, who at this time were mainly landowners, believed that the workers were taking an unfair advantage of the situation. So in 1351 A.D. Parliament pa.s.sed a law fixing the maximum wage in different occupations and punishing with imprisonment those who refused to accept work when it was offered to them. The fact that Parliament had to reenact this law thirteen times within the next century shows that it did not succeed in preventing a general rise of wages. It only exasperated the working cla.s.ses.

THE PEASANTS' REBELLION, 1381 A.D.