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The Renaissance had placed human beings at the center of life and had shown that this world was not just a ‘vale of tears’ but was something that could be meaningful and it was possible for people to live without reference to the divine.<ref>Giustiniani, Vito. "Homo, Humanus, and the Meanings of Humanism", <i>Journal of the History of Ideas 46 </i> (vol. 2, April – June 1985), p 178</ref> The Renaissance or ‘rebirth’ was influenced by the ideas of the ancient past and it drew from Roman and Greek civilization in order to provide a solution to current problems. The Renaissance was a Pan-European phenomenon and changed the mental worldview of the elites in Europe and indeed the emerging middle class across the continent. The cultural movement was to have a profound impression on people’s worldview. The Renaissance produced the Humanists who were a movement of educationalists and scholars, they sought truth and knowledge by re-examining classical texts and the bible. The Humanists ideas, the growth in textual analysis, and the Northern Renaissance changed the intellectual landscape and encouraged many Church reformers, such as Martin Luther and they later broke with Rome and divided Europe into two confessional camps, Protestantism and Catholicism.

==What was the Reformation==

The Reformation is the schism that divided the Roman Catholic Church and ended the old unity of Christendom. The origins of the Reformation were in an attempt to reform the Church, there had been many attempts in the past to reform the Church but they had all failed. By the early sixteenth century there was a growing crescendo of calls for the reform of the Church and for an end to the immorality and corruption of the clergy.<ref> Payton Jr. James R. Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings (IVP Academic, 2010), p. 78</ref> The Reformation was not an attempt to divide the Roman Catholic Church but it was an effort to reform it. The failure of the Catholic Church to reform and its attempts to suppress the Reformers meant that it drove many to establish their own churches. The Reformation was an attempt to return to the original teachings and values of the early or ‘Apostolic’ Church.<ref>Payton, p. 113</ref> It claimed that only the bible could teach and instruct men about the Word of God and had little regard for the received wisdom and authority.

==Conclusion==

The Renaissance was a cultural flourishing that promoted secular values over religious values. However, in Northern Europe, the ideas of the Renaissance were to take on a religious character. The ideas of the Italian humanists, such as textual analysis, the use of critical thinking and rejecting authority that was not sourced on reliable evidence were taken up by Northern Humanists who applied them to the Church.<ref> Chipps, p. 67</ref> The Northern Humanists sought to reform the Church and were generally pious men. However, the humanists perhaps unintentionally weakened the Papacy and its theoretical underpinnings. In their examination of key texts and especially the Bible, they exposed many key assumptions as false. This was to lead to a widespread challenge to the idea of Papal Infallibility and the power structure of the Church.<ref> Chipps, p. 17</ref> The Renaissance also encouraged people to question received wisdom and offered the possibility of change, something that was unthinkable in the middle ages. This encouraged the reformers to tackle abuses in the Church and this ultimately led to the schism and the end of the old idea of Christendom.

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==Related DailyHistory.org Articles==

*[[Why did the Italian Renaissance End?]]

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