The Elizabethan Age or English Renaissance 14851625

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The Elizabethan Age or English Renaissance
1485-1625
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• The Renaissance was a flowering of literary,
  artistic, and intellectual development that began
  in Italy in the 14th century.
• The movement was inspired by the arts and
  scholarship of Ancient Greece and Rome.

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4 Key Characteristics of Renaissance

• 1.The religious devotion of the Middle Ages, with
  its emphasis on the afterlife, gave way to a new
  interest in the human beings place here on earth.
• 2.Universities introduced a new curriculum called
  the Humanities, which included history,
  geography, poetry, and modern languages.

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• 3.The invention of printing from movable type
  made books available to more people. A German
  printer, Johann Gutenberg, published a Bible in
  the 1450s that is believed to be the first book
  printed in the new manner.
• 4.More and more writers began working in the
  vernacular, the local language.

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• The Renaissance did not jump the channel into
  England until the final two decades of the
  fifteenth century.
• Because the Renaissance began in Italy, many of
  the leading Renaissance figures were Italian.
• Among them were Dante Alighiere, 1265-1321,
  author of The Divine Comedy.

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• Franseco Petrarca, known as Petrarch, 1304-1374,
  wrote lyric poetry in a new 14-line form called
  the sonnet.
• Leonardo Da Vinci, 1452-1519, was a painter,
  sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.
  Because of the scope of his interests and
  talents, Da Vinci typifies what we call the
  Renaissance mana person whose broad education
  and interests knew no bounds.

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• The Crusades had opened routes to Asia, but the
  merchants of the Italian city-states quickly
  monopolized trade over the new routes by sea and
  land.
• Seeking their own path to the riches of Asia,
  navigators representing Portugal and Spain began
  seeking an all-sea route.
• Aided by the development of the compass and
  advances in astronomy, the navigators no longer
  needed to cling to the coast.

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• Their explorations culminated in Columbus
  discovery of the New World in 1492. Soon,
  European powers were establishing colonies in the
  Americas and extracting great wealth from the new
  lands.
• Englands participation in the Age of Exploration
  began in 1497, when the Italian-born explorer,
  John Cabot, sailing for an English company,
  reached New Foundland, an island off of Canada.

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• Cabot thus laid the basis for future English
  claims in North America. However, English
  leaders would not exploit those claims until near
  the end of the English Renaissance.

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The Protestant Reformation
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• Hand in hand with commercial expansion came a
  growing sense of nationalism, along with the new
  Renaissance spirit, led many Europeans to
  question the universal authority of the Roman
  Catholic Church.
• Many people had grievances against the church.
  Some objected to the sale of indulgencesremission
  s of punishment for sins, for which people made
  payments that went to corrupt church officials.

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• Critics also objected to other forms of payment
  to the church, viewing them as a form of
  taxation.
• Othersinfluenced by the growth of independent
  thinking in the universitiesquestioned church
  teachings and the church hierarchy.
• One critical scholar was the Dutch thinker,
  Desiderius Erasmus, whose edition of the New
  Testament, raised serious questions about
  standard church interpretations of the Bible.

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• Although Erasmus remained a Roman Catholic, he
  helped to pave the way for a split in the Roman
  Catholic Church that began in 1517, when a German
  monk named Martin Luther nailed a list of
  dissenting beliefs ( His 95 Theses ) to the
  door of a German church.
• Luthers protest was aimed only at reforming the
  Roman Catholic Church, but it ended by dividing
  that church and introducing a new Christian
  denomination known as Protestanism.

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• The process that Luther started has come to be
  called Protestant Reformation.
• Fueled by political discontent, the Protestant
  Reformation swept through much of Europe. It led
  to frequent wars between European nations whose
  rulers had opposing religious beliefs.
• Protestants and Catholics both suffered
  persecution, depending on where they happened to
  live and which religion their ruler supported.

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• Protestants themselves were divided, and in
  Germany the followers of Luther (called
  Lutherans) persecuted the followers of another
  Protestant, John Calvin of Geneva, Switzerland.
• Calvins ideas (called Calvinism) found a foot
  hold in Switzerland, England, and Scotland, and
  helped to bring about the establishment of the
  Puritan and Presbyterian sects.

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England Under the Tudors

• The Tudor dynasty ruled England from 1485-1603.
  Looking back, this was a time of stability and
  economic expansion.
• English wool growers were finding new markets
  abroad English investors were forming trade
  companies.
• London had grown into a metropolis of 180,000
  people.

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• The first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, inherited an
  England that had been depleted and exhausted by
  years of civil war.
• By the time he had died in 1509, he had rebuilt
  the nations treasury and established law and
  order. In doing so, he had restored the prestige
  of the monarch.
• Henry VII was succeeded by his handsome and
  athletic son, Henry VIII. Like his father, Henry
  VIII was a practicing Catholic.

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• He even wrote a book against Luther, for which a
  grateful Pope granted him the title Defender of
  the Faith.
• Henry VIIIs relationship with the Pope did not
  last. Because his marriage to Catherine of
  Aragon had not produced a son, Henry VIII tried
  to obtain an annulment from the Pope so that he
  could marry Anne Boleyn.

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• When the Pope refused to have the marriage
  annulled, Henry remarried anyway. This defiance
  of popal authority led to an open break with the
  Roman Catholic Church.
• Under the Act of Supremacy (1534) the king
  assumed full control of the church in England and
  severed all ties with Rome.
• Henry became supreme head of the new Church of
  England or Anglican Church.

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• He seized the Catholic churchs English property
  and dissolved the powerful monasteries, selling
  some of their lands to benefit the royal treasure
  and granting the rest as gifts to loyal friends.
• Although the Protestant Reformation was not
  directly responsible for Henrys break with Rome,
  it helped pave the way.

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• Many people in England resented Roman dominance
  and the break helped to stir new feelings of
  national pride.
• Henry used ruthlessness to suppress opposition
  among monks, friars, and others.
• He even had his former friend and leading
  advisor, Thomas More, executed because More had
  refused to renounce his faith.

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• Henry married six times in all. His first two
  marriages produced two daughters, Mary I and
  Elizabeth I. His third wife, Jane Seymour, bore
  a son, Edward, who was but a frail child when
  Henry died in 1547.
• Henry VIIIs son, Edward VI, became king at the
  age of nine and died at the age of fifteen.
  During his brief reign, a series of parliamentary
  acts were passed that dramatically changed the
  nations religious practices.

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• English replaced Latin in church ritual, and the
  Anglican prayer book, or Book of Common Prayer,
  become required in public worship.
• By Edwards death in 1553, England was well on
  its way to becoming a Protestant nation.
• Roman Catholicism made a turbulent comeback,
  however, when Edwards half-sister, Mary took the
  throne.
• Mary I was herself Catholic and she restored
  Roman practices to the church of England.

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• She also restored the authority of the Pope over
  the English church and insisted on marrying her
  Spanish cousin, Philip II.
• People were also disturbed by Marys violent
  repression of Protestants. Ordering the
  execution of some 200 Protestants, she earned the
  nickname, Bloody Mary and strengthened
  anti-Catholic sentiment with England.

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Elizabeth I

• When Mary I died after a 5-year reign, her
  half-sister Elizabeth I came to the throne. She
  would be the last of the Tudors, dying unmarried
  and childless after a long and successful reign .
• Strong and clever, Elizabeth was probably
  Englands ablest monarch since William the
  Conqueror.

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• She received a Renaissance education and read
  widely with Greek and Latin classics. She became
  a great patron of the arts.
• Many of the eras greatest literary works bear a
  dedication to the queen, and the word Elizabethan
  has come to signify the English Renaissance at
  its height.

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• Elizabeth also put an end to the religious
  turmoil that had existed during Mary Is reign.
  She reestablished the monarchs supremacy in the
  church of England and restored the Book of Common
  Prayer.
• She instituted a policy of religious moderation
  that enjoyed great popular support, although it
  failed to please many devout Catholic and
  Protestants.
• Often working with Englands Catholic faction
  were France and Spain.

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• Both nations sought to dominate England.
• Elizabeths clever maneuvering of England and
  Spanish royalty allowed England a period of peace
  during which commercial and maritime interests
  prospered.
• If Elizabeth had one outstanding problem, it was
  her Catholic cousin, Mary Stuart, queen of
  Scotland by birth and (as great grand daughter of
  Henry VII) next in line for the throne of England.

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• Because Catholics did not recognize Henry VIIIs
  marriage to Anne Boleyn, they considered Mary
  Stuart, the Queen of England.
• As a prisoner in England for 19 years, Mary
  became the center of numerous Catholic plots
  against Elizabeth. While punishing the plotters,
  Elizabeth let her royal cousin live.
• Finally, however, a court convicted Mary of
  plotting to murder Elizabeth, and Parliament
  insisted on Marys execution.

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• Mary went to the block in 1587, a Catholic martyr.

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Defeat of the Spanish Armada

• The quarrel between Spain and England went beyond
  the execution of Mary. Spain rejected most
  English claims to territory in the Americas, and
  resented the fact that English adventurers had
  been attacking and plundering Spanish ships.
• Spains king, Philip II, already infuriated by
  the sea pirates, considered Marys execution the
  last straw.
• He prepared a Spanish fleet or armada of 130
  warships and sent it to attack England.

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• In an 8-day battle in the English Channel in
  1588, the English sailors out-fought and
  out-maneuvered the Spanish fleet.
• The defeat of the Spanish armada marked the
  decline of Spain and the emergence of England as
  a great sea power.
• The English Renaissance continued after Elizabeth
  died in 1603, although a new dynastythe
  Stuarts----came to the throne in England.

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• Elizabeth named Scotlands King James VI as her
  successor. He took the throne as James I.
• James I (1603-1625) was a Protestant. The era in
  which he ruled was sometimes described as the
  Jacobean era, from Jacobus, the Latin word for
  James.
• Like Elizabeth, James was a strong supporter of
  the arts. He sponsored the establishment of
  Englands first successful American
  colonyJamestown, Virginia.

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• During James reign, war broke out. Guided by
  the medieval idea of the divine right of kings,
  James I often treated Parliament with contempt.
  He and Parliament became involved in a power
  struggle, quarreling over taxes and foreign war.
• James I also persecuted the Puritans. Prompted
  by James religious intolerance, a group of
  Puritans migrated to America and established the
  Plymouth Colony.

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• The Renaissance or Elizabethan Age produced an
  explosion of cultural energy. English architects
  designed and constructed beautiful mansions.
• Composers turned out new hymns to fit the
  Anglican service.
• The Renaissance spurred the growth of English
  educational institutions. Instead of depending
  on tudors, wealthy families began sending their
  sons to public schools (outside the home),
  secondary schools.

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• The first true comedy of the Elizabethan Era was
  Ralph Roister Doister.
• The Globe Theater was built in 1599.

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• The theater was octagonal, or eight-sided. The
  poor, (groundlings), paid a penny apiece for
  admission.
• The theaters were temporarily closed down in 1597
  after a performance of The Isle of Dogs.
• Shakespeare was a successful actor and
  playwright, who was married to Anne Hathaway at
  the age of 18. He and Christopher Marlowe were
  considered the two greatest playwrights of the
  period.

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