Socio-Economic changes in Europe since the Renaissance

You may include the following in your discussion:

• lifestyle, quality of life
• economy, banking system
• religion, rise of secularism
• Human rights, capital punishment etc.
2.Quanlity of life
The quality of life for the poor in both the cities and rural areas improved, but
it was the lives of the middle class that changed the most. Especially in the
rapidly growing cities, the rising middle class contributed to the growth of a
capitalist society based on trade and money. Previously, most trade was for
basic necessities and depended on bartering goods, rather than using money,
in local marketplaces. Increased trade goods and manufacturing, however, led
to increased use of coins and money. This made it much easier to import goods
and set up manufacturing systems. Many merchants from the middle class
became very wealthy from the increased trade and were able to purchase
castles originally owned by the nobility. Like the nobility, wealthy merchants
and their families now had the leisure time and money to learn to read, to
study music, and to enjoy art. The Renaissance was a time when many people
explored new ideas about how society should function and what it should
value. Although religion remained central to people’s lives, they wanted to
improve their lives and their surroundings. Previously, the higher Church
officials and the nobility were the only members of society who could afford
luxuries, but now the wealthy merchant class began to build large homes and
surround themselves with beautiful objects. They often supported the arts and
the construction of public buildings to demonstrate their personal wealth and
family status. These wealthy patrons or supporters of the arts believed that a
community surrounded by beauty made everyone’s lives better. Religion
remained an important part of the people’s lives, but society was becoming
more secular and citizens began to focus more on this life on Earth. Individuals
began to see that it was possible to change the way they lived, where they
lived, and who they worked for. Instead of believing that their lives were
destined to remain the same as their parents and ancestors, they began to see
that through hard work and taking advantage of opportunities, individuals
could improve their lifestyle and social class. Individuals could now create their
own identities. The worldview of rigid social position and lack of individuality,
so long in place under the feudal system, began to change rapidly.
6.Education
Before the Renaissance, European education was generally provided by the
Roman Catholic Church. It focused on grammar, rhetoric, and logic, but still
followed Church teachings. Since the Roman Catholic Church kept most of
Europe’s books in its libraries, it was regarded as the keeper of Europe’s
knowledge. It kept education alive by teaching nobles and the clergy reading,
writing, and arithmetic. Towards the end of the Middle Ages and during the
Renaissance, the knowledge held by Islamic, Jewish, and isolated European
scholars became more widely known across the continent. Scholars built on
this knowledge to develop new ideas and make new discoveries. Both the
study of ancient documents and the ideas from intercultural contact spurred
an amazing rebirth of learning.

9.The rise in secularism in Europe

One way in which the Renaissance is thought to have led to the European
Reformation, is that it fostered (or promoted) a rise in secularism across
Europe. Secularism is the belief that religion should be kept separate from the
public or political life of a society. It also encourages the belief that people
should have the right to think and make decisions freely and not have their
religion dominate their lives entirely.
The spread a philosophy known as humanism during the Renaissance was one
factor which lead to a rise in secularism in Europe during the late Middle Ages.
Humanism taught people to think as individuals and promoted the idea that
humans, not supernatural forces, controlled history (refer Topic one, Chapter
one).
10.humanism
During the Middle Ages, individuals were expected to devote their lives to the
church above all else. In stark contrast, Renaissance humanists broke free from
medieval tradition to put focus on personal interests instead of religious
demands. Humanists emphasized the importance of worldly pleasures and
studied classic texts from philosophers like Plato and Aristotle for inspiration.
With humanism came an increased interest in travel and the pursuit of
knowledge. Renaissance writers, artists, scientists and other thinkers were
greatly influenced by humanist beliefs -- Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni
Boccaccio, Sir Thomas More and Francis Bacon are a few of the humanist
pioneers who influenced Renaissance art and literature.
5.Spreading of Knowledge
Around 1450, German citizen Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press,
and with it came an increasingly informed society. Prior to the Renaissance,
texts were tediously hand written, and education was reserved to wealthy
citizens who could afford such luxury. The printing press revolutionized
communication -- suddenly, the middle classes were able to educate
themselves. Scientists were able to easily share work, leading to faster and
more accurate discoveries. Thanks to the printing press, new ideas spread
quickly throughout Europe and allowed for widespread educational reform.
In 1445 the German Gutenberg invented the printing press. He changed the
lives of millions of people throughout Europe. For the first time, bookmaking
became cheap and Gutenberg was able to print many books very quickly.
In the Middle Ages books were very expensive because they were written by
hand. Only priests and monks could read them because most of them were
written in Latin.
In the Renaissance the middle classes had the money to buy books but they
wanted books that they could read in their own language. A publishing
boom broke out and buying and selling books began to prosper in many
European countries. People bought travel books,
romances, poetry and almanacs. They read more and became better
educated.

8.Realism in Art
The Renaissance is best known throughout popular culture for its contribution
to the arts. Instead of focusing on traditional depictions of religious figures and
iconography, artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Titian painted
studies of the human body in detail. Influenced by the humanists, Renaissance
painters drew inspiration from ancient Greece and Rome. Thanks to newly
improved knowledge of anatomy, Renaissance painters studied to create
perfect proportions, detail and emotions. Nudes grew in popularity, and to
advance their realist perspective, Renaissance painters experimented heavily
with texture and depth.
In the Renaissance artists and architects used mathematics to plan their works.
They discovered that many objects in nature have a certain proportion. They
called this the golden mean. It is often found in the shape of a leaf or in the
form of buildings. Many of them found out that the human body
also displayed proportions . Renaissance architects built new buildings that
were symmetrical.
Artists of the Renaissance started to experiment with perspective in their
works. They learned that if they made an object smaller and put it in the
background of a picture it appeared farther away. They also painted with
more realism than earlier artists.
Many great artists of that time started their studies or worked in Florence.
Michelangelo was the most famous artist of the Renaissance. He studied
painting and sculpture in Florence, where he created his famous sculpture of
David for the Florence cathedral . In his later life he painted the ceiling of the
Sistine chapel in the Vatican—probably his most famous painting.

7.Reliance on Observation
With the Renaissance came an increasing divide between science and religion
as a new era of discovery swept through Europe. Scientists began to focus on
practical observation instead of religious teachings and viewed their work with
renewed skepticism. Sir Francis Bacon and his contemporaries championed the
scientific method, urging the examination of theories using hard evidence.
Dissections became popular during this time, and scientists began to better
understand the basics of human anatomy. Based on his observations with the
telescope Galileo Galilei, sometimes called “the father of modern science,"
spoke out against the Catholic Church's belief in an earth-centered universe.
3.Economic Changes
Economic transformtions between 1300s and 1650 Agriculture. Medieval*
Europe was overwhelmingly rural, and its economy depended almost entirely
on agriculture. Towns and cities did not become significant centers of
production until the late Middle Ages, but after that time their economic
importance increased rapidly As populations grew, the demand for food rose.
Meanwhile, the new freedom of peasants meant that landowners had to pay
more for their labor. These developments made goods more expensive and
produced inflation—a general increase in prices—across Europe. The
combination of rising prices and a growth in the number of people needing
goods and services encouraged merchants to expand their businesses.

In the 1300s and 1400s Italy dominated European trade and manufacturing.
Merchants in Florence, Milan, and Venice developed large business
organizations to carry on their activities across Europe. They manufactured,
sold, or traded a wide variety of products. They also provided banking services
for governments and other merchants in many areas of Europe.
because banks now gave the citizens checks and they no longer had to carry
their money around merchants could travel to distant places and trade and
spread their culture believe that helped the economy grow. When some define
capitalism as where all the means of production are privately owned, and
some define it more loosely where merely "most" are in private hands —while
others refer to the latter as a mixed economy biased toward capitalism. More
fundamentally, others define capitalism as a system where production is
carried out to generate profit, or exchange-value, regardless of legal ownership
titles. Private ownership in capitalism implies the right to control property,
including determining how it is used, who uses it, whether to sell or rent it, and
the right to the revenue generated by the property
1.The New Middle Class
A new middle class emerged —bankers, merchants and tradespeople had a
new market for their services.
People became wealthier and had more than enough money to spend. They
began to build larger houses, buy more expensive clothes and get interested
in art and literature.
The middle class population also had more free time, which they spent
learning foreign languages, reading, playing musical instruments and studying
other things of interest.
The Renaissance was especially strong in Italian cities. They became centres
of trade, wealth and education. Many cities, like Venice, Genoa and Florence
had famous citizens who were very rich and gave the city a lot of money.
11.Capital punishment
Western art history bulges with depictions of martyred saints and
slaughtered innocents, but capital punishment is something more precise.
It refers not just to a death, but to a legal death. There is no death penalty
in a state of nature; only society, and the laws that govern it, can turn
murder into alleged justice. Capital punishment exists at a paradoxical
junction point of civilisation and barbarism. It is “the most premeditated of
murders”, in Camus’s phrase, in which the force of law is used to justify
something otherwise unjustifiable.
In Europe during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, capital
punishment was not hidden away in execution chambers. It was a public
spectacle, advertised to city-dwellers and featuring carefully stage-
managed processions. Gruesome capital punishment, as well as
depictions of it in art, had a dual purpose. It not only enforced civic order;
it also served to encourage piety and warn against eternal damnation. In
a time when kings ruled by divine right, every application of the death
penalty was a miniature preview of the Last Judgment. By the 18th
Century, capital punishment was still a public spectacle. In the modern
era the death penalty has moved indoors. Executions were no longer
visible, and so the instruments of execution – the noose, the injection
table and especially the electric chair—have become synonymous with
the condemned.
4.Exploration and Trade
Exploring the seas and sailing to other continents became very important
during this era. Sailors had better instruments and maps , ships were built so
that they could endure longer journeys. Most of them had big sails that
were driven by strong winds.
Portuguese navigators started to explore the western coast of Africa from
which they brought gold andivory home. Later on they discovered that sailing
around the southern tip of Africa would bring them to India and Asia. These
places offered spices, valuable cloths and silk. Explorers brought them home
and sold them to wealthy families in Europe.
After Columbus had discovered America in 1492 , many Spanish, French and
Italian explorers followed. The Spanish were the most successful.
They conquered much of Central and South America and brought home gold
and silver from the Inca and Aztec empires.