Video Transcript: Lesson 19

Unit 12 02 Renaissance

 

Hello, welcome back to the Christian leasers Leaders Institute history what my name is Rich hamstra That's why the my pleasure to be the instructor for this class

 

so we'll start over every time you get another sip of coffee. Hello, welcome back to the Christian leaders Institute, history 101 The beginnings of civilization until the year 1500. My name is Rich hamstra, and spend my pleasure to be the instructor for this class. This is the final session in this class and afterwards, you'll find questions on the last third of the course. We have been looking at various cultures in this class around the world throughout this time period. But in this final section, we're going to really focus on Western Europe. And in particular, we're going to focus on Italy. And some of the huge changes that come about out of Italy during this period of time. That's, of course, in Rome, there was a period of time that the Pope and the papal power was actually in France, as we discussed earlier in the course. But fundamentally, the power of the church is extraordinarily significant. And we're just picking up a little bit where we left off in the last session just to remind ourselves of how important the church is in medieval Europe. It is the one universal. You know, there are various nations and principalities and powers and kings and all sorts of industries and empires and like, but throughout all of Europe, it's just one church. And while there's often huge differences between particularly north of the Alps and south of the Alps, so for instance, the way Christianity is lived out and practiced in Ireland and England, in the Scandinavian Scandinavian countries, and Germany and France is different at this time from how it's lived out in Italy, as Sicily, Spain. But still one church under basically the Pope. Notice that the church is a largest landowner. And that meant that they were able to reap the harvest of those lands. So much of the church's wealth comes from the people who work those lands and then the profits went back to the church, the monasteries, the Abbott's. The nunneries were all very lucrative places as well as places of education, and often places where they cared for the sick. The church has control the minds of the people, I really have the the intellectual life of Western Europe. For the most part, the church said, This is what truth is. This is what reality is, and this is what we study. This is what we believe, and this is how we are saved. And the church retained exclusive control over the means of salvation, particularly through the various sacraments that the church practice at this time. So, outside the church, there literally was no hope of salvation. So it's also the period of time during the medieval times that great Gothic cathedrals are built in Cologne in England, Germany, France, the great these great humongous churches and humongous cathedrals that are built often over a period of centuries of time. Again, using the wealth of Europe. Probably one of the most significant individuals who is not a pope But one of the leaders of the medieval time is the theologian, Thomas Aquinas. And I just merely copied this out of a Wikipedia article on Thomas Aquinas. But I thought it well summarized and introduced him to us. And then I'll add a few things. St. Thomas Aquinas bore around 1225 and died on March 7 1274. So

 

less than 50 years old when he died, was an Italian Dominican friar, a Catholic priest and Doctor of the church. He was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism. Now, scholasticism is a movement in the 13th century, within the Catholic Church in which they worked very hard, at wedding together, both biblical teaching what we know by faith, and what we understand by observation, and what we see in the world around us, and by deduction from that. So it's a wedding of faith and reason together. And huge huge volumes are written at this period of time. Aquinas, his works are voluminous, to say the least, in which there is arguments and counter arguments, given for different propositions about whether or not they're true. So, that is a little bit about scholasticism. And within which he is known as a doctor Angelicus. And the doctor communicates that is she is a heavenly doctor, an angelic doctor and the doctor of the community. He was a foremost classical proponent of natural theology, we'll say a little bit more of that later. And the father tome ism, which he argued that reason is found in God. So there's no conflict between faith and reason. But while they're not the same reason is a gift of God. Thomas influence on western thoughts considerable and much of modern philosophy developed or post his ideas, certainly true, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics and political theory. I like many currents in the Church of the time, Thomas embrace several ideas put forward by Aristotle, who will be called the philosopher and attempted to synthesize a real Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity. And this is one of the main reasons that we should remember who he is. So during the period of the Crusades, the Crusaders are exposed through the Arabs, who kept alive actually, Aristotle, exposed to Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle. And he's also known in Byzantium, but it's primarily through Islamic scholarship that crusaders learn about Aristotle, they bring him back, and Thomas and others pick up on the principles of Aristotle errs to tealium. In brief, his philosophy is in contrast to Plato, who thought about the world and that this world was not actually true. The real world for Plato existed on an ideal plane. All we actually knew here was shadows of what was true. In contrast to that Aristotle, understood that the material world had so we'll choose it, it was not ephemeral, it was not devious. And by observation, you could make deductions on how things worked. His is very much a natural kind of philosophy, or natural as it can be, in Aristotle's time. And so, Thomas takes Aristotle's understanding of the world as the place that you can apprehend what is true by observation by looking and then making deductions making theories about that. He takes that and applies it to his own day, and applies it to Catholic doctrines, Catholic teachings.

 

His best known works are the disputed questions on truth, the Summa Theologica and the Summa contra Gentiles. The two books are called Suba. This means the grade or the height of the compilation of those teachings. The Catholic Church honors Thomas Aquinas As a saint and regard him as a model teacher, for those studying for the priesthood, that's true. He's often just referred to as the doctor, as the teacher, and indeed the highest expression of both natural reason and speculative theology. So prior to this time of the Scholastic's, it's really St. Augustine, who ended the fourth century beginning of the fifth century, sets Catholic doctrine in significant ways, and the church is basically Augustinian in most of its teaching throughout the Middle Ages until, and Augustine is much more of a Platanus store and Neil Platanus follows the sort of Plato's sort of way to look at the world. Aristotle, influenced Thomas and there's a huge shift in how the Catholic Church understands what theology is, and how to do theology when it comes to Thomas. So for Augustine, we'll just use a central dispute point throughout until today, in the Christian world, what does it mean when we celebrate the mass, the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, The Last Supper, when we celebrate that sacrament, and we say, in the words of Christ, this is my body. This has both united as communion is supposed to do, but also divided Christians. In many ways. Reformation has been described as a dispute over what these words mean, this is my body. Well, St. Augustine took Jesus to mean it's a much more figurative way to and to have a spiritual meanings. And this is a quote from Augustine from one of his sermons. What you see on God's altar you you've already observed during the night, that is now ended, but you've heard nothing about just what it might be, or what it might mean. Or what great thing if I be said to symbolize that word symbolizes awfully important here. It means that is, one thing stands for another. For what you see is simply Brad Anacapa. This is the information your eyes report, but your face demands far subtler insight. So for Augustine, it is our face by which we understand that this indeed is Jesus Bodhi Jesus blood that we are participating in as Christians when we celebrate communion, did it by faith, but your faith demands farsighted, subtler insight, the bread is Christ's body, the cup is Christ's blood, and the quote. So that is how Augustine, in brief, would talk about the Lord's Supper and in their own way, Protestants all accept that understanding. I mean, one way to understand the difference between Protestants and Catholics is mostly to say, Protestants are much more Augustinian and Catholics are much more told us, that is Thomas Aquinas, in many, many ways, especially when it comes to this question of what is what does it mean when we say, This is my body? The church or the Catholic Church throughout the Middle Ages, and up until today, has held to a doctrine called Transubstantiation and in this doctrine, during a certain sacred moment, the wafer and why literally transubstantiate they change reality into the body and blood of Christ.

 

So it is understood as a metaphysical change in some respects, into the actual body and blood of Christ. Now, of course, one can look at those elements and say, well, but they still look the same, they still act the same. And for generations, hundreds of years actually To the Catholic Church, I thought about how it could explain this, and how I could understand it, it really came to August to Aquinas rather, when he wedded together, Aristotle, and how to reason and save. And he, Thomas Aquinas, we won't go into any detail on this. But Thomas Aquinas then spent a lot of ink and a lot of pages, presenting logical arguments to prove that Transubstantiation was true, and it still remains today, the official doctrine doctrine of the Church. So that becomes a real dividing point later on, when the Reformation comes between Protestants and Catholics. Protestants, for the most part, will not accept or do not accept what St. Thomas said about this is my body. There's another huge topic that a client has spent all sorts of time on, and that is the question of natural law. And it really, really kind of boils down a little bit to, to the question of whether or not we, if we accept what the scripture says is true, can we also accept that there's truth through observation in the world around us. And in much the Middle Ages, there was a rejection of death in much of the Middle Ages. It was, the only truth that we can know is by scripture, and what we see with our eyes, the world around us what we can discover by science, and they didn't even use that word. But what we can discover by investigation, the world around it is not to be trusted. And that's one reason why there is insistence, for instance, the Bible talks about the four corners of the earth, the church insisted the world is square, had edges. And if you sail too far, you would fall off the edge. There were scientists who said, No, it's around. faith and reason we're in conflict, during the Middle Ages already, and phase was understood as the only way to apprehensions. So one of the things that Thomas did when he took over Aristotle was to say, no, no, no, there is truth, we can understand what is real, what is accurate, what is factual, what is true, by reason, as well as by faith. In fact, you don't have to have faith. The non Christians whom they refer to in their, during the Middle Ages as the infidel, the infidel, can no truth through this natural law, just as well as a believer. Now, this was pretty scandalous, in Thomas days, and he had many, many people who argued against them. But that's one of the reasons he writes as much as he does, and as long as he does. So he ruled that all people will be able to grasp by using reasons whether they believe in the Bible or not. He also argue that natural laws, things that we can learn from nature, are binding on everyone. So there's sort of a universal ethic, not just a Christian ethic, not just a Christian morality, but there's a universal morality that applies to everyone. And that universal morality we learn from nature. And we learned those from what they what he talked about as common human inclinations. And he cites three in particular, these are for him sort of the prime directive of what it means to be human and the prime directives of his natural law. The first one is self preservation. The second one is reproduction. And the third is the use of reason to order our lives in order. In other words, to organize things to, to decide which things to do first, which things not to do, and the like to order our lives. The use of reason is true for everyone. Whether one's a believer or not. The urge the inclination for self preservation is the number one directive for everyone. Christian or not, the urge to reproduce everyone's Christian or not And he builds a huge ethical system based upon these three basic principles that he says applies to everybody. And they are fundamentally after some development, of course, and argument, they become really the basis of Catholic doctrine and Catholic ethics. Right until this day, you'll see those things reflected, for instance, even in today's position, the Catholic Church position on birth control,

 

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common human inclination to reproduce, they say cannot be in any way in any way, shape or form be artificially interfered with that violates natural law. They don't argue that from a Christian perspective, but from a common human perspective. So it's true not just for Christians, it ought to be true for everybody. There ought to be no means of artificial birth control. They argue that with respect to abortion, there are two down to both self preservation as well as reproduction. That entity that child is understood to be to have fully formed rights and individuality. As soon as the conception happens, based on natural law, they will argue, they argue that I knew tenacious that the principle of self preservation will not allow in any cases or any any moments for the use of euthanasia. And those are just illustrations of the way Thomas theology and to Mystic theology, Aquinas is theology still applies today for the vast majority of those who are Christians in our world. So Thomas Aquinas brings scholasticism into the medieval times, and particularly into medieval thinking, intellectual thinking, in the 13th century. The medieval ages, intellectually, at least, or in their thoughts, is, I think, characterized rightfully by talking to talking about it as theocentric. God is the first reality that they think of everything is about their relationship to God, or at least, what God has done what God thinks, who God is, whether God exists, there were endless discussions and proofs for the existence of God, and liked by different theologians and philosophers, but always a starting point of all thought, during the Middle Ages, is who is God, there comes a pretty radical change, and it is a change that is still going on in a lot of ways, in modern societies, in the 14th century, and it gets a huge start in what is called the Renaissance. Now that again, is sort of a made up term to describe a period of time and a number of different thinkers and movements that happen in late 13th century, mid 14th century and carrying on into often the 16th century, and I would argue, in many respects, is still developing today. And that is the shift from that starting point of really all artistic, intellectual pursuits as being theology, who is God to anthropology, who is killing the shift? It does not mean that because when includes the anthropological question who was human, that was exclude the theological, but it is about where does one start? What is the what is the center of one's inquiry? One thought, one's art. One's wondering. This is the fundamental shift that I think begins here in the Renaissance. And I'd asked you are asked So he assigned to you the reading the Wikipedia article on the Renaissance. So the 14th century saw an intellectual and cultural change. And again, it's slow, and it's not universal, and it spreads and different in different places. But it's still perceivable as a great shift in historic in the history of the Western world for sure, that applied the classical Greek and Roman values to their own time. Much of this, again, has to do with what's happening with trade.

 

influences from the east, coming west, to Venice to Genoa. Trade on the silk routes, trade to Constantinople. And ideas and particularly literature that previously in the West had been lost. After the Roman Empire felled and books are burned and Library of Alexandria is burned. And people didn't know the names of the Greek poets they didn't know, the rock and poets, they didn't know. The stories and mythologies, of who people were they they had monuments around had these old buildings around, they had no idea what these buildings were for. The Colosseum is used as a place to herd goats. For instance, the Pantheon Pantheon in Rome is used as a garbage dump. They had no idea that these places had historical significance, or were important places in the past, they just look like old, old buildings. And often they would tear them down and reuse the stone. In the 14th century, because literature that came moving from the east into the West, particularly into Italy, there became an awareness of an entire culture that existed before Christianity, that Greek and Roman culture, and people began to read that people began to appreciate that and they decided that what they really wanted to do was to revive that to give it a rebirth. They saw it as their cultural inheritance. And they began to adapt those values, which are values that are anthropological. They look at the human beings before they look at the theological to themselves. And so the Renaissance promotes a sense of the human being is the center of meeting rather than a Theo centric center.

 

I guess that's redundant, I should say. It's humans human centered, rather than God centered. And these are the beginnings of values that are broadly very broadly called humanism.

 

So think of the Renaissance, as a huge shift. In the way, people approached and began to think about what truth is, what meaning is, and what is valuable and important to know. Prior to the Renaissance, it really is only theology and power in the life but intellectually, not so much. After the Renaissance, and continuing until today, the human beings increasingly becomes the subject of our thought, of our concern of whom to serve. And that's even true, that's true politically. In the medieval times, nations existed to serve God. Kings existed to serve God, people existed to serve God. In modern times, governments exists to serve their people. Now, the two aren't necessarily contradictory. Matter of fact, I think of myself as a Christian humanist. But there is tension and there is certainly not universal agreement on that. But these this is a shift of the Renaissance. Here's a quote From the Wikipedia article that I've asked you to read, but I think it very helpfully sums up a number of things in some ways. Humanism was not a philosophy but a method of learning. Like I said, again, the question is, where do you start your inquiry in contrast to the medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving contradictions between authors, humanists would study ancient texts in the original and appraise them through a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence. humanist education was based on the program of studio Humanitas, the study of the five humanities and they got these right out of Greek and Latin cultures. This is what one studied was one was in the academy or one was under. One was being taught in the ancient world, poetry, grammar and history, moral philosophy and rhetoric, with rhetoric, that is the art of persuasion, being the primary one. Although historians have sometimes struggled to define humanism, precisely, most have settled on a middle of the road definition, the movement to recover, interpret and assimilate the language, literature, learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome above all human is asserted, the genius of man, the unique and extraordinary ability of the human mind. That's, that's a good way to put it, I think, the Renaissance gave value to humanity, and particularly, human intellectual thought, which the medieval period, never perceived. The dignity, one of the values of the ancient world was the dignity or weight or worth of the human being now, for them, in the ancient world that were only really applied to the upper class, the lower classes did not have that work did not have what was called that big, Dignitas.

 

Renaissance recovers that, and begins in many, many ways throughout culture and

 

throughout their writings and the like to apply that to Western civilization. In some ways, humanism was not a philosophy, but a method of learning in

 

Oh, I see that I have, I have copied that place. So we will have to read it again.

 

It is that sort of intellectual revolution, that paves the way for virtually everything else that's going to happen in western civilization. And I know this is a world history course. And so we're not just talking about Western civilization. But it is the case that as history unfolds the Western world, England, France, Germany, and then later the United States. The western world sets the, for better or worse, sets the agenda for most of the rest of the rest of the world, for the next 500 years.

 

So during the writers answer became they began to examine the Greek and Roman plays and stories and philosophers and histories for inspiration, and often to repeat them. They also, particularly as Constantinople, was threatened. There were many refugees who came from Constantinople came to Italy in particular, and brought with them a Greek New Testament as well as manuscripts of the New Testament in Latin, and have the Bible, actually in Latin, and Greek. These were unknown. In many ways, before that they had they had Jerome's Vulgate they had a Latin version that they didn't have degrees. And they began to study these with great intensity. And the coming of the Greek New Testament to Western Europe during the Renaissance is absolutely foundational to what later happens with the beginning of the Protestant church with Luther and Calvin. Tyndale and and the light they studied The religious mythologies of the past. They incorporated much of and admired the great artistic abilities of the ancient world. And they produce political pamphlets and theological pamphlets throughout Europe to spread these ideas. So, what happened in the Renaissance? Well, among other things, they introduced Latin and Greek literary text into common culture. It wasn't just a province of a few monks now in a monastery who could read, but reading began, began spreading. And as I mentioned, the Greek New Testament comes to Europe. They encouraged the Renaissance leaders encouraged the use of the common language, the language of the people, prior to that Latin is reserved for the church, and is the official language of the thrones, and the like. But now they begin to publish things and write things in the common languages, including beginnings of translating the Bible, into languages that the people could understand. Maybe they couldn't read it, but at least if they had somebody read it for them, if there was someone who could read it for them, they could listen to it in their own language. Otherwise, it was completely foreign to them it was listening to someone read a text in a language you didn't understand. And he said that that was holy and no wonder they didn't understand much about the Bible or the Christian faith. They increased dramatically, the level of education throughout Europe. And many of these Renaissance leaders and early humanists become the primary teachers in particularly in England. But in the universities throughout Europe, Erasmus is a name that you should be acquainted with Erasmus was a Dutch scholar, early 16th century. Among other things, he did teach at Cambridge ended up back on the continent later in life, he collected various biblical manuscripts that he found, and began to realize that there isn't just one single Bible Manuscript, there are hundreds, that he could find her, she didn't have any complete ones. And so he had various versions. And he merged those all together and created a basic text. That was a translation of the Vulgate. That is the standard Catholic Bible and publish that on one side in Latin, and on the other side, published the first Greek text that comes out in Europe. And in many respects, that becomes the basis about 100 years later, for the King James Bible, the textual the manuscript tradition that Erasmus led, of course, the 15th century saw in Germany, with Gutenberg the invention of not the printing press.

 

That really isn't the case because the printing press was well known in China. Hundreds of years before this, but Gooden Berg's invention, his innovation was to invent movable metal type. So his typeface lasted way longer and made much better impressions in the old woodblock type. And this makes mass printing possible. Once his printing press is built, and begins to turn out various volumes, and the Bible is the first volume that he he prints. People copy his printing press ENTER begins to grow all over Europe. So that within 100 years there, there are now millions of printable paper printed pages, where previously it was hand copied or made with movable wooden block type. And this changes the intellectual life of Europe. In foundational ways, many, many more people begin to learn to read, for instance, they be things are read and printed in their own language. And so if they can't read, they can have someone read to them and they can understand it. They are influenced by these pamphlets that are circulated in significant ways, and the pamphlets are the primary ways in which various movements throughout this period of time spread.

 

Florence is the city of Florence in Italy, which was an independent city is often considered the birthplace of the Renaissance. And that's not really quite true. There were others who came before who, who got this ball rolling. Again, the Renaissance didn't start in any particular day. It's a movement that grows incrementally over time. But Florence's often understood as the hotbed or the center of where the Renaissance happened in the, in the in the 13th century. And if you go to Florence today, you will see that they celebrate some of the leaders of the Renaissance here is Sachio Machiavelli. Machiavelli is a political leader. And he writes a book called The prince in which he describes what politics ought to be like, when reason is the primary way that one approaches it. And what he basically comes down to is, politics is ruthless. It's about power. It's about gaining power, and really any way that you can gain power is legitimate. market today, even today, if you say that a certain politician is Machiavellian, what you mean is that he will do anything or she will do anything in order to assert or gain more power. And while we might think well, that's disruptive double, that's immoral, that's wrong. It's not ethical people. Many people appreciated Machiavelli greatly and still do. And believe that indeed, he got it right. He makes the case that it's entirely it's entirely unethical to be ruthless and devious. Very significant politically. The Vinci Leonardo da Vinci is well known as an artist, but he's also a scientist. He's an inventor, the Mona Lisa, of course, is probably his most famous painting. But actually, the Lord's Supper painting is equally as well known. He exemplified the Renaissance principle of that, he wanted to have reason over mysticism. And this contributed greatly to his, particularly his scientific endeavors. He, he looks at the human being, not as a mystical creation, but rather as a series of systems that one could analyze understand his tries, for instance, to trace the circulatory system Donnatella his artists in his own right, but also probably more significantly, the architect of much of the monumental buildings. The cathedral, Francis in Florence, is one of the things he worked on as well as St. Peter's Basilica, which is built in this period of time. This is statue of America, who species who may not be nearly as well known as the VINCI or Michelangelo or some of the others, but actually, he's a mapmaker and an explorer in his own right. And what he did was, he demonstrated Columbus had sailed 1492 bumped into this other landmass thought he was in India called the people Indians, thought he was right on the verge of finding China came back and reported that to Isabella and Ferdinand but it really was a little later voyage that you specie said no, no, no, this is not India. This is not China. This this is an entirely new landmass. This got a huge northern area and a huge southern area. We didn't know it existed before. And so people so he began to draw maps of it. And as these continents that he discovered, actually gain their name from him. So, America, North and South America are named for the species. That was putting in this is Hercules and Caicos. One of the stories were Hercules conquers another strong guy. There, runabout on scholars, loved and sculptors loved the Roman and Greek themes. And they kept repeating them, they love the realism. And they exalted in human dignity. And so they made their figures more and more and more realistic. And if one wanders around them today, it's not hard to imagine them coming to life. Right before your eyes, this sculpture was actually in Florence on one side of, I think the city gates when you came in, and might Michelangelo's David was on the other side of the gate. So you pass through these two sculptures that are so incredibly lifelike, and so in credibly beautiful, truly amazing to see them in Florida. So Michelangelo, is well known, and of course, probably as well known for his work in the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. And that same as centerpiece where the hand of God is coming down and touching Adam, and is intended to demonstrate the divine, giving the gift of dignity of worth of value to the humankind. Among other interpretations. Great building projects went on during this during the Renaissance, Europe was becoming tremendously wealthy, for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the golden silver, they were taking out of Mexico and later, Peru, bringing it back to Europe. And funding many, many building projects, as well as a lot of wars and armies. But the church in Florence, the cathedral is built during this period of time during the Renaissance. And this is a fresco. Above it. I've always been impressed. The center figure there is a woman shake a woman who has a banner across her lap that says, charity, or charities, the notion of mercy. So of course, Christian value would not not have the sense that the Renaissance Scholars or people or intellectuals were against the church. They weren't particularly new. They were they were acceptable church people, given their age, acceptable Christians, but they didn't argue for the most part against the church or see the church is inadequate. They just were so refocusing the church's efforts away from a strictly theological to centric point of view, to that anthropomorphic or human point of view. And starting place. This is a period of time that St. Peter's Basilica goes through a major remodeling, it had already existed, but was in great disrepair. And around 1506 under Pope Julius the second, who is one of the Borgia folks I believe, in the house of Borgia decides that it's going to have a major major remodeling and additions. There were plans drawn up ahead of time by other folks and so he didn't start it, but he really put the wheels under and it's designed principally by Donato rahmati by Michelangelo, Kala Montero and Jia Lorenzo Bernini. They are the major architects, Michelangelo and Bernini in particular, are remembered toward bringing it to fruition, although it really was worked on for hundreds of years, St. Peters is the most renowned work of the Renaissance architecture, and the largest church in the world. One sees it whatever one watches the Pope Francis.

 

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maths for instance on Easter at the St. Peter's Basilica, they're in Rome right next to the Vatican. So it was quite intentionally built to be ornamental, monumental to emphasize the glory and power of the church. They're the beginning of the 16th century. The problem is, how do you pay for it? How do you How does the church which is losing significant rounds, in a lot of places, particularly in England, we might have gone through a couple of different phases in which church property has been confiscated, talked earlier about the Black Death. Many times, monasteries and alike have earned income for the church. Monetary is closed because so many monks had died. And these monasteries had not been, they were sometimes sold to other landowners, sometimes taken over by the English crown. And the church had lost significant revenue. From England, we kind of less true of the continent, but certainly from England. And while money is pouring into Spain and Portugal, in particularly because of their provinces in the new world, particularly in the Spain, not all of that is yet gone to the church. And so the question becomes, how do you pay for these major building projects? Always a question when building projects, right? How do we get paid for well, foundational way of primary way that was paid for was the decision to increase dramatically the sale of indulgences. Now there were indulgences in the church tradition. For hundreds of years prior to this, they didn't invent indulgences at this time, but they really increased their sales and actually even sent out salespeople in order to bring in revenue to help pay for St. Peter's. Soda indulgence is one aspect or one part of the penance that one was expected to do for cities. If you did the correct penance, and often paid for the indulgence with some input some money, you got a certificate of indulgence that would free you in part or in whole, from the temporal punishments that a person might deserve. So in other words, if you upon sending, one could expect bad things to happen to you. And that these things were going to be punishments from God. And even if they don't come in this life, they're going to come in Purgatory, that sort of intermediate state where your soul is purified and you make penance and delight for your sins. And depending on how central you are, depending on how long you have to spend there. Well, if you could bind indulgence and go through the act of penance, you could lessen these temporal punishments and lessen the time and lessen the pain of purgatory. It's not accurate, and Protestant should be clear about this. It's not accurate to say that indulgences were about selling the forgiveness of sins. But they were about selling relief, from punishments in this world and in Purgatory, for sins that we commit in this world.

 

They are

 

intended to demonstrate the sincerity of one's repentance. The Vatican, the Pope, sent out representatives, most famous of whom is a man named texel, who goes to central Germany, Central Eastern Germany, and will later actually he was brought on trial for violating church doctrine in what he'd said about the indulgences because he was promising people that all they had to do was pay and if they just paid then right away, they could. They could buy indulgence for someone else, maybe their mother or their father, their brother, who had died and was in Purgatory. They were certain and if they would just pay some money, that person would be freed from Purgatory. The Catholic church actually never taught that did not teach that you could buy someone out of purgatory that way. But TESL apparently did. And he made the church, tons of money doing this. It is really this abuse. Forgiveness, this abuse, of doctrine of teaching of the way the gospel is a free offer of salvation.

 

Understanding that God's forgiveness includes it does not mean there are no consequences for sin. But those consequences are not the same as punishment. It's this abuse that really fires up Martin Luther. He has some doctrinal questions ahead already in 1517, and 1516. And prior to that, he has some qualms like about the church, she's not real sure of the Pope's authority, the number of ways he's not real sure about a lot of things. But it is Tetzel in Germany, talking about indulgences, selling indulgences in this way that really lights a fire under him to begin those protests that he leaves, and he thinks his desire deeply is merely to lead a reform of the church. But once once his teaching becomes known, and his opposition to the church down, it is not a reform. The Reformation is really closer to a revolution, that it is a reformation and changes the whole notion and trajectory of Western Europe. Well, that's going to complete conclude and this third section. And there are numerous things that we didn't talk about. And it's been difficult to choose which ones to talk about, or which ones to skip. But these are the things that we have, we have covered in this third section. In brief, just a little review, we talked about these themes, we talked about international trade, as being really one of the heart beats of this time period, the silk routes, the sea routes of Viking trade routes, the Inca and Aztec routes, and roads that they used, trade, legs, the world together in ways that previously had not been linked. We talked about the conquest or hostile takeovers, and specifically looked at the Norman invasion of England, the Turkish invasion from Central Asia to the Mediterranean, the Aztec tech takeover and Mesoamerica and the Inca takeover in Peru, as well as the Mongolian invasion that took over virtually everywhere, except for the far reaches of Western Europe. We talked about the class of religions, Buddhism, both within itself, different southern and northern Buddhism, as well as Buddhism's class was Confucianism, particularly there in China, we talked about Islam, and mostly about Islam. class was Christianity. And then that is the Crusades, as well as the return cluster in Spain. And we also talked about internal divisions within Christianity during this period of time. And lastly, in the third section, we talked about sort of the political social organization in life, the rise of national identity so that by the 16th 17th and 18th centuries, that big chunk of time, there is real identity, not everywhere, of course, but it means something to say I'm French, it means something to say I'm an Englishman. There means something to say I'm Spanish. And not just Well, I live in this English town and therefore, you know, Dorchester or for mousou interest. There's a national identity that arises during this period of time. We talked about the three Chinese dynasties that were in this time, the song, the young, and the Ming, and how they dealt with their population. We talked about the importance of the Black Death, how that changed the whole history of the world and stretched from the Pacific to the Atlantic, talks a lot about the church. And finally, we've ended it with some reflections on the Renaissance. So these are the topics that we didn't get to cover. And my apologies for all of those hundreds and 1000s of things that we did not get to. So this concludes Christian leaders listen to history one on one, I want to thank you for your time and for your energy and hope you do well on the test. hope they're not too difficult.

 

I look forward to the world history 102, which does not pick up right where we left off here, from 1500 until more recent times, so it's hard to know how far history should come forward. But for sure things that we'll talk about in 102, the age of exploration. And while that did start, prior to 1500, it was just too big a topic to try to include in this course, we'll get more into the Reformation, religious revolution that changed England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, all of Northern Europe really creates a very different culture, from the other side of the Alps. We'll talk about the period of empire building that is colonialization. the times in which the Dutch, the Spanish, the French, the German, the English, and later, the Italians began to really dominate the world in significant in, at least politically and economically. In many ways, culturally. The Enlightenment is certainly a significant time it is, in my opinion, phase two, basically, the the Renaissance, where the Renaissance moves from the theocentric to the anthropocentric view, I think the Enlightenment takes it one step farther, and pretty well excludes to centric point of views. That's the change that happens in fundamental ways. We'll talk about the search for independence. This is the time of revolutions, the American the French Revolutions all throughout South America, as well as many, many changes in China. And then the search for independence, of course, leads us into basically the breakdown of the colonial empires. India becoming free, and after the war. We'll talk about the industrial technical revolutions. Certainly the coming of anything that we talked about in terms of mass technology today, finds its roots during this period of time, the world is at war in significant ways. And finally, I think we'll talk about a search for lasting peace at least those are some of the areas that I'm exploring right now, as I think about this history. 102 and I look forward to going there very soon. In the meantime, God bless. And I pray that this course has been useful to you, and that you have indeed found that a blessing. Thank you.