Did the Renaissance mark a break with medieval culture?

Introduction

The belief that, particularly in terms of philosophy and religion, the Renaissance marked a break with medieval culture on the path upwards to modernity is a convenient one for many. It fits with popular and simplistic narrative views of history. However, recently, scholars have begun to question the existence of a break or even a significantly distinct period.

This essay attempts to address the above question with particular reference to literary, educational, philosophical and religious traditions. It opens by briefly outlining the main academic positions (historical and current) concerning the Renaissance – those held by the likes of Jacob Burkhardt, Russell Frazer, Paul Kristeller, and Sir Ernst Gombrich – and the general progression from the nineteenth-century position of Burkhardt to the more complex view generally accepted today.[1]

Secondly, the article looks at continuity and change between the Middle Ages and the fourteenth/fifteenth century (the years associated with the start of the Italian Renaissance). It begins in the highly controversial fields of religion and philosophy – touching on what it meant to be a Renaissance humanist – and concludes that, particularly in religion, there was almost no fundamental change (and, in the case of philosophy, no abrupt or direct change).

In the third paragraph, it looks at the significant continuity in the field of education in terms of programs, structures and curricula. Finally, the paper turns to the highly variable area of classical literature where there was both significant change and substantial continuity between the Renaissance and the Middle Ages (particularly the High Middle Ages).

Ultimately, it concludes, to say that the Renaissance marked a break – let alone a complete break – with medieval culture is not a historically defensible position.

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The Historical Debate

For many years, scholars have debated the ultimate significance of the Renaissance and to what extent it presented a new era in human history. Jacob Burkhardt, the famous nineteenth-century Swiss historian, interpreted the Renaissance as a significant new period modelled on classical society on the ‘other side’ of the Medieval Age.[2] For him, as for many of his contemporaries, the Renaissance was the start of a new modern era and, thus, represented a complete departure from medieval culture. This belief was also held by Renaissance humanists like Petrarch, who described the Middle Ages as a time of ‘dense gloom’ characterised by a ‘sleep of forgetfulness’.[3]

Marsilio Ficino wrote of the Renaissance, in contrast, as a ‘golden age’.[4]

The Renaissance was a 'golden age'. (Marsilio Ficino)

In the middle of the twentieth century, Paul Oskar Kristeller wrote an influential work to correct what he saw as an overly simplistic view of the Renaissance. While not denying the elements of Renaissance humanism that constituted an invigorated interest in classical education, Kristeller argued that there remained, in fact, a considerable amount of continuity between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (particularly in Italy).

Today, there are a growing number of scholars who emphasise the significance of other so-called renaissance movements – including the Carolingian Renaissance of the eighth and ninth centuries and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance – even more so, or at least equally, with the traditional fourteenth/fifteenth-century Renaissance.[5] This is seen in the creative but provocative title of Jerome Moran’s 2018 article ‘The R/renaissance(s), humanists and classics’.[6] In fact, some historians, like Sir Ernst Gombrich, go so far as to describe the Renaissance as more of a ‘cultural fashion’ or trend than a distinct era or period.[7]

The Renaissance was merely a 'cultural fashion'. (Sir Ernst Gombrich)

Elizabeth Eisenstein places an emphasis on the rise of printing as a significant reason for the sustained success of the fourteenth/fifteenth-century Renaissance when compared with other renaissances.[8] In sum, between the nineteenth century and today, historians have interpreted the Renaissance as a powerful new era in history on the one extreme and as a mere cultural fashion on the other.

Religion, Philosophy and the Humanists

An objective study of the historical facts surrounding the Renaissance demonstrates that there was no serious break with medieval society with regard to religion and philosophy. At a popular level today, an impression has arisen of the Renaissance as the beginning of an age of secular ‘reason’ following the so-called ‘Dark Ages’ of previous centuries.[9]

This perception is also often fuelled by histories and writings by some Renaissance humanists themselves.[10] While its origins were during the Renaissance itself, this kind of terminology was popularised by so-called Enlightenment scholars like Burkhardt who saw their era as the pinnacle of the transformations that were commenced in the Renaissance.[11]

The question of whether in these fields the Renaissance presented a break from medieval culture goes to the heart of the definition of humanism. Contrary to their popular image, humanists were teachers of the liberal arts, or grammar, history, rhetoric, ethics and poetry – the study of ‘what is distinctive of, peculiar to, human beings’.[12] Humanism was ‘essentially a Classical education’ not a coherent philosophy.[13] Thus, Kristeller argues that, in fact, Renaissance humanists cannot be called ‘philosophers at all’.[14]

Certainly, at the core of humanist pursuits were a set of fundamental philosophical emphases or assumptions; namely, an emphasis on the value of humankind and human emotions as well as a belief in the superiority of classical culture and literature when compared with that of medieval society.[15] However, they were not primarily philosophers, but educators. Further, as Kristeller argues, these assumptions were not necessarily due to the influences of antiquity, but were instead a ‘characteristic of the age’.[16]

Indeed, we see in the writings of many humanists a re-focus on the value of humankind.[17] Interestingly, however, while these writings are more extreme in their emphasis on man and, in some respects, border on the heretical (e.g. ‘man…is a kind of god’), the humanist mindset still functioned within the acceptance of the reality of the Theistic worldview (e.g. ‘God, who is the universal cause for all things, alone is omniscient and omnipotent’).[18]

This intellectual acceptance of the Truth of Christianity is a common theme in the lives of most Renaissance humanists, from Petrarch, Valla and Erasmus to Calvin and Melanchthon, among others.[19] In light of this, Kristeller concludes that, rather than being an Age of Reason contrasting with an Age of Faith, it more accurate to ‘call the Renaissance a fundamentally Christian age’.[20]

The Renaissance was 'a fundamentally Christian age'. (Paul Oskar Kristeller)

In fact, Giovanni Rucellai noticed during the mid-fifteenth century that, ‘men and women attend[ed] mass and divine offices with more devotion than had been customary in the past.’[21]

The impression of a secular period or movement has come about due to the tendencies of humanist educators to emphasise humankind and human emotions, but this was in no ways a challenge to fundamental Christian beliefs.[22] As Witt notes, the Renaissance humanists were in many ways less secular in emphasis than generations of humanists during the Late Middle Ages.[23]

Nevertheless, the assumptions behind their educational emphases – namely, the value of humankind as created in God’s image – did have somewhat of an ‘indirect’ and more gradual impact on the overall philosophical thought of the Renaissance.[24] A love for ‘individualism’ was certainly apparent during the later parts of the Renaissance due to the prestige and eventual rise in popularity of humanist liberal arts education.[25] Certainly, though, this did not represent a clear break with medieval culture. Therefore, Christianity proved to be a consistent factor in both the Renaissance and the Middle Ages; neither did Renaissance thought appear as an immediate or significant break from medieval philosophy.

Education in Medieval and Renaissance Europe

When one looks at the forms of education available before and during the Renaissance, it is also soon clear that there was no immediate fundamental change in many ways – certainly not a sharp break with medieval culture in this field. Kristeller points out that in many of the educational processes of Renaissance Italy there were strong links to medieval heritage – if not with Italian heritage, than with that of other Western European countries.[26] As Orme points out, while English

‘medieval and also Renaissance schools were…modest in their size and resources’, ‘the modern school…and the modern educationist…are the respective heirs of the town schools of the twelfth century and the friars who rediscovered childhood in the thirteenth.’[27]

He argues that there was a ‘continuous tradition’ of education from the Middle Ages to modernity.

In terms of grammar education, for example, Black suggests that there was ‘complete continuity’ in terms of curriculum and methodology between the Medieval Era and the time of the Renaissance humanists, including the use of the same grammar textbooks and grammatical teaching techniques.[28] As early as the twelfth century, Orme points out that many English schools taught ‘not only Latin grammar, but the liberal arts, canon and Roman law, or theology.’[29] Western European educational reading material also remained much the same from the Middle Ages through to the fifteenth century.[30]

Another continuity between particularly Italian medieval and Renaissance culture can be found in their respective oratory traditions. Based on the ‘considerable’ medieval usage of what Kristeller calls ‘secular eloquence’, he concludes that, in the field of oration, the Renaissance proved to be, again, for the most part, a ‘continuation of the medieval’ tradition in its substance.[31] Of course, as was the case in many fields, the humanists had an impact on the style of oratory, which they ‘modified…according to their own tastes and classicist standards.’[32]

Nevertheless, basically ‘all types of humanist oratory have their antecedents in medieval literature.’[33] Consequently, the main contributions of Renaissance humanism to education were in terms of the promotion of classical, liberal arts education and of working within existing educational institutions and subjects to encourage the standards of classical style.[34] Hence, the Renaissance did not bring about a dramatic transformation of the medieval education system, subjects studied or even the curriculum, but rather it promoted a classical style consistent with the liberal arts emphasis.

Literature During and After the Mediaeval Period

Despite the many achievements of Renaissance humanists in the fields of Latin and Greek literature, a great deal of continuity remained from the Medieval Period – particularly the High Middle Ages. In terms of Latin literature, Renaissance humanists had much to contribute. In fact, modern classicists like Jerome Moran argue that ‘it is safe to say that we would not be teaching [classical Latin]…now had it not been for [the humanists].’[35] This is largely due to the rise in 1300 of neo-Latin as opposed to contemporary medieval Latin.[36]

Of course, due to the disagreements over what year marked the start of the Renaissance, it is debatable whether this was even solely a feature of the Renaissance.[37] Neither would this present any sort of break with medieval culture, as Charlemagne had advocated and enacted a return to Classical Latin during the Carolingian Renaissance of the eighth and ninth centuries.[38] Therefore, while there certainly was a great deal of continuity between medieval and Renaissance culture in terms of the usage and study of Latin, Renaissance humanists had much to contribute in terms of the rescuing, copying and editing as well as distributing and popularising of many classical Latin works.[39]

Far more substantial again than their contributions to recovering and promoting classical Latin works were the humanists’ noteworthy advances in the realm of Greek literature, at least when compared with the efforts of medieval scholars.[40] Among their more significant achievements, humanists introduced Greek into many secondary school and all university curricula in Western Europe and eventually translated the Greek literature known at the time into Latin, which was still the more widely used and studied language.[41]

Two further points, a detailed study of which is beyond the scope of this paper, should be noted particularly regarding the literary achievements of the Renaissance humanists. Firstly, their recovery of classical Greek works was aided somewhat by Byzantine and Islamic contributions, but the extent of this influence is still debated.[42] Further, the rise of printing as a means for diffusing classical works and other literature was instrumental in sustaining the efforts of Renaissance humanists and in popularising classical Latin and Greek literature.[43]

The recovery, editing and distribution of many Latin and particularly Greek classical works stand as the greatest contributions of Renaissance humanism to the field of classical literature.[44] Thus, while the significance of the changes – some gradual and others more abrupt – afforded to European and particularly the Italian culture in these fields should not be underestimated, it is clear that there was no general break with medieval culture when considering the overall Renaissance influence in classical literature.

Conclusion: There was no clear break

To conclude, the broad fields of literature, education, religion and philosophy demonstrate no clear break with medieval culture. In literature, where the most change can be observed, the most significant contributions by Renaissance humanists were in the promotion and distribution of classical works – in which they were aided greatly by the advent of printing. Clearly, though, there was significant continuity – particularly in the study and use of Latin works. In the field of education, again, the chief changes brought on by the Renaissance were in the style used. Study fields, curricula and other aspects remained substantially the same.

Finally, in the closely related fields of religion and philosophy, this essay has demonstrated that humanism was actually a primarily educational program with only indirect and longer-term impacts on the philosophy and thought of the Renaissance. Religiously, the period from 1300-1650 remained much the same (notwithstanding the significant changes occurring before, during and after the Reformation – a discussion for another time) in that it continued as a strongly Christian and Theistic-dominated period.

Thus, the argument that the Renaissance marked a complete break with medieval culture cannot be sustained by the historical evidence. The Renaissance saw some change (gradual or more specialised), but it was more of a literary movement with indirect and long-term cultural implications.

Footnotes

[1] Russell Fraser, The Dark Ages and the Age of Gold, Princeton, 1973; Walter R. Davies, ‘Review: medieval and renaissance’, The Review of Politics, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 430-433; Maurice, Evans, ‘Review: The Dark Ages and the Age of Gold by Russell Fraser’, Renaissance Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 105-109); Robert Black, ‘Introduction’, in Robert Black (ed.), Renaissance Thought, London, 2001., p. 1. [2] Jacob Burkhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance, London, 1944., p. 120. [3] Quoted in Rabia Umar Ali, ‘Medieval Europe: the myth of the Dark Ages and the impact of Islam’, Islamic Studies, vol. 52, no. 2, p. 156. [4] Reproduced in Alison Brown, The Renaissance, New York, 1988, p. 94. [5] Ibid., pp. 6-7. [6] Jerome Moran, ‘The R/renaissance(s), humanists and classics’, The Journal of Classics Teaching, vol. 19, no. 38, pp. 96-98. [7] Cited in Brown, Renaissance, p. 2; Mark Knights and Angela McShane, ‘From pen to print: a revolution in communications?’, in Beat Kümin (ed.), The European World 1500-1800, 3d edn, London and New York, 2018, pp. 253-255. [8] Cited in Brown, Renaissance, p. 2. [9] David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions, New Haven and London, 2009, p. 34; Black, ‘Introduction’, p. 3. [10] Burkhardt, Civilization of the Renaissance,pp. 146-147. [11] Black, ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-2; quoted in Black ‘Introduction’, p. 2. [12] Moran, ‘R/renaissance(s)’, p. 97; Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, New York, Evanston and London, 1961, p. 10. [13] Moran, ‘R/renaissance(s)’, p. 97. [14] Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 100. [15] Ibid., p. 20. [16] Ibid. [17] Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man, Indianapolis, 1965, pp. 3-4. [18] Reproduced in Perry M. Rogers, ‘Chapter 11: The Age of the Renaissance’, in Perry M. Rogers (ed.) Aspects of Western Civilization, vol. 2, 9th edn, Upper Saddle River, 2011, pp. 292. [19] Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, pp. 78-79. [20] Ibid., p. 73. [21] Quoted in Black, ‘Introduction’, p. 3. [22] Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 73. [23] Ronald G. Witt, ‘The Humanist Movement’, in Brady, Thomas A. (ed.) Handbook of European History, 1400-1600, Leiden, 1994., p. 96; Brown, Renaissance, p. 7. [24] Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, pp. 19-20. [25] Ibid., p. 21. [26] Ibid., pp. 102-108; Nicholas Orme, Education and Society in Medieval and Renaissance England, London, 1989, pp. 3 and 7. [27] Orme, Education and Society, p. 21. [28] Robert Black, ‘Humanism’, in Robert Black (ed.), Renaissance Thought, London, 2001., pp. 80-81. [29] Orme, Education and Society, p. 7. [30] Black, ‘Humanism’, p. 81. [31] Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 104. [32] Ibid. [33] Ibid., p. 105. [34] Orme, Education and Society, p. 17. [35] Moran, ‘R/renaissance(s)’, p. 97. [36] Ibid. [37] Ibid, p. 96. [38] Ibid, p. 97. [39] Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 14. [40] Butters (in Kumin), p. 234; Kristeller, p. 96. [41] Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, pp. 15-16 and 96-97. [42] Cited in Ali, ‘Medieval Europe’, p. 161; Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 15. [43] Cited in Brown, Renaissance, p. 87; cited in Victor Scholderer, ‘Printers and readers’, Robert Black (ed.), Renaissance Thought, London, 2001, pp. 128-129; Kristeller, Renaissance Thought, p. 14; Orme, Education and Society, pp. 17-18. [44] Ali, ‘Medieval Europe’, pp. 157-158; Kristellar, Renaissance Thought, pp. 9-10 and 95.

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The Renaissance: 'Golden Age' or 'Cultural Fashion'?