Reformation Europe Europe in the 16th Cent.

1
Reformation EuropeEurope in the 16th Cent.

• The implications of a division in Christian Europe

2

• First, given the division between Catholics and
  the many Protestant sects, it was not as easy to
  control dogma. That does not mean that both
  Catholics and Protestants did not have dogma,
  they did moreover, religious toleration was not
  a feature of Reformation Europe. What was
  important here is that the monolithic structure
  of Christianity was destroyed, and that ipso
  facto allowed for greater individual freedom to
  pursue research in areas that challenged the
  status quo.

3
On the Catholic Church

• Bear in mind that the Church was not completely
  hostile to science. Consider the work done
  (admittedly to determine the date of Easter) that
  required considerable care and insight, namely
  using cathedrals to measure the sun. The device
  the orb of the sun and the system and how it
  looks .

4
On the protestants

• Even tho there is a clear movement toward
  adopting a new cosmological perspective, consider
  this comment from Luther in one of his Advent
  sermons . . . said, "The heathen write that the
  comet may arise from natural causes, but God
  creates not one that does not foretoken a sure
  calamity." Again he said, "Whatever moves in the
  heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of
  God's wrath." What conclusions do you come to?

5
What was different was the following

• The development of national, secular and
  centralized states whose structure was
  legitimized by the appeal to reason (rather than
  religious belief).
• The growth of commerce and trade empowered a
  bourgeoisie that needed education to run its
  affairs, was more comfortable with "scientific"
  thinking, and rejected excessive intrusions of
  religious belief.

6
The monopoly on knowledge by the priestly caste
was broken

• Governments found they could legitimize
  themselves by supporting high culture. This led
  to the foundation of academies of science (very
  elitist) and eventually (after the French
  Revolution) to the reorganization of universities
  on a more secular basis.
• Reinforced by the discovering of Roman law and of
  scientific treatises (even of the twit Aristotle)
  of the Greco-Roman period. Such materials were
  secular in character and, by virtue of their
  antiquity provided an alternative to church
  authority.

7
Europe did not become "liberal" in our sense of
the word

• Some areas (predominantly those with maritime and
  commericial establishments) were more receptive
  to new ideas than were others (where agriculture
  dominated and feudalism persisted) scholars
  moved to where they were valued.
• Invention of the printing press gave new meaning
  to "open/public, sustained self-conscious
  reflection.

8
Higher Education

• Universities remained very underfunded and very
  much under the control of clerics, both
  protestant and catholic.
• Tho there were some exceptions (Padua had both
  Galileo and Vaselius as professors), they
  remained under the control of theologians of all
  faiths.
• But there was competition

9
The Jesuits and the Counter-reformation

• Science was then supported primarily in the new
  Jesuit stations (like the Collegio Romano and on
  the square. Note the role of Jesuits in education
  between 1550 and 1615. Wherever the Jesuits went
  both in Europe and to the East, they stressed
  education and astronomy. But the end of the17th
  Cent the court astronomer of China was a Jesuit.

10
And the Academies

• Academies of science" that were founded
  everywhere first in Florence and the throughout
  Europe.