Renaissance: The Renaissance was filled with several events that changed the way that people of that time lived. In different parts of the countries, different changes were occurring. In France during the Hundred Years’ War many nobles had been killed. The remaining nobles became richer and more independent. The common people became poorer and more abandoned. The result was that authority was hard to establish, especially for kings, since the nobles thought a king almost unnecessary and the common people often did not like the king’s laws. The next war, the War of the Roses, brought even more instability. So when king Henry VII stabilized England, he was thought of as a hero. Petrarch was called the father of Italian Renaissance humanism. He advanced humanism more than anyone else in that time. Humanists studied and searched to discover good classical Latin and classical manuscripts. Humanist schools taught people about astronomy, ethnics, grammar, history, mathematics, music, poetry, and rhetoric. Humanist writings focused on facts more than any other feature of history. The printing press typed out many more books than had been available before. Because of that, people were able to buy books at better prices. About half of the books were religious and others told about political power. With their new books people learned to read and got to know a lot more about the events around them. When people read the religious books, they began to get their own ideas about religion besides what the Catholic church taught them. This was one event that prepared the church for reform. In Italy the people studied a wider variety of topics and a new education was set up. When some scholars visited Italy and learned that these things were available, they went back north and told other scholars. Soon afterwards, the renaissance had spread throughout most of Europe. The scholars studied the ancient writings from Greece and Rome. Some studied Greek and Hebrew so that they could investigate the origins of Christianity. During the Renaissance many things changed and new studies were made. The new knowledge led to new ideas which started the Reformation.
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