Humanism

Essay on Humanism

The Renaissance is the label we put upon the emergence of a new perspective and set of ideals in Europe. This does not mean that it was sudden, neat and clean. It was gradual, inconsistent, and variable from place to place. The Renaissance had its origins in Italy because a powerful merchant class arose in its cities that replaced the landed aristocracy and clergy as the leaders of society. This new class, along with many aristocrats and clergy, embraced humanist ideals. Generally speaking, humanism was a new worldly ideal to replace the medieval focus on eternal life. Humanism was founded on the idea that humanity is capable of greatness by its own means--through wealth, knowledge, art--and does not need to place all its efforts and hopes in God's salvation and the world of spirit and eternal life. One must immediately say that these two viewpoints were not perceived to be mutually exclusive. A change in the view of human capacity did not mean that there was no room for God or eternal life. Instead, it was a change in the way both God and salvation were viewed--although it is true that some people in the Renaissance did become almost completely interested and absorbed in human rather than spiritual concerns. Renaissance humanists of all types shared a great optimism that humanity's (God-given) artistic and intellectual abilities could raise humanity individually and collectively to a higher plane of life.

The Renaissance was made possible by new wealth and the rise of the merchant classes, particularly in Italy. In the century after 1450, Europe generally and in particular Italy, Rhineland Germany, and the Low Countries (Holland and Flanders) experienced a great recovery of trade and manufacturing after the war-torn and plague-ravaged late Middle Ages. The population expanded again, and prices rose. Merchants traded wools, linens, wine and other goods to the Muslim east for luxury goods such as silk and spices from China, Indonesia and India, including such goodies as pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, which were valuable in making bland foods and slightly spoiled meats delicious and exciting. The most important social result of this new was the rise of the merchant class. They were an exclusive business elite, making up about 2% of the population of great Italian trading cities. They were wholesalers, bankers, distributors, and manufacturers--sometimes all at the same time. In many wealthy Italian cities like Venice or Florence, wealthy merchant families came to power either collectively (in a republic) or individually by establishing themselves as princely rulers. The papacy itself fell into the hands of these powerful families, who through intrigue and fighting attempted to get their own family members elected Pope. They built new palaces, such as the Medici's palace in Florence, and maintained courts.

The social influence of this merchant class was very important. Naturally, they developed a different social and moral outlook on life from the traditional aristocrats and clergy of the Middle Ages. They had a kind of secular ethic, not in the sense that they were atheist--they were not--but in the sense that they believed worldly accomplishments and wealth were honorable--just as honorable as fighting or praying had been in the middle ages. Landed aristocrats and clergy would deny this. Medieval monks or friars like St. Francis would say that wealth was dangerous to the soul, and usury was a sin. For knights, fighting was the chivalric ideal. Merchants, on the other hand--though they borrowed much from Christian and chivalric ideals (such as courtly love)--had their own code. They honored trade and wealth, and the earthly and spiritual good that wealth could produce: the wellbeing of the family, the state, the church, learning and art. In short, merchants and manufacturers believed that they ought to be honored for their high calling, and not despised as mere commoners. They sought an alternative standard of excellence, embodied in the new ideal of the "Renaissance man."

A key inspiration for this new ideal was ancient civilization. Medieval scholars had long studied ancient Greek and Roman authors, but had, like St. Thomas, devoted themselves to integrating the ancient ideas into the theology of the church. Starting with Petrarch in the early 1300s, however, humanists became interested in the ancient writers on their own terms. Humanists came to admire the more worldly wisdom of values of ancient Greece and Rome, and eagerly sought out new texts in an effort to recover as much of the ancient knowledge and spirit as possible. Why such enthusiasm for the ancients? The worldly spirit of the ancients seemed more suitable to the prosperous merchant class, and they provided an important foundation of prestige and authority for a new class of men as they asserted their right to rule.

The writings of Nicolo Machiavelli are the single most important example of this new humanist thought. Drawing from ancient Roman writers, Machiavelli developed a worldly concept of politics, and was one of the first in the modern period to discuss the virtues of republican government and a system of checks and balances. He is perhaps most famous for his rejection of Christian idealism in politics. Princes and other leaders, he argued, must view human affairs must as they really are, not as we hope ideally they should be. The rules of worldly power (best understood by the ancient Roman authors) would indicate that the prince or ruler must take whatever action favors the fortunes of his state, even if it contradicts Christian morality. Hence, it is better to be feared than loved. Machiavelli was expressing humanism in two important ways: first in his focus on worldly affairs rather than heavenly affairs, and second in deriving inspiration from classic writers of ancient Greece and Rome rather than Christian writers. In this case especially, Renaissance humanism stood at odds with both medieval tradition and Christian teachings.

Not everything was different. In many ways, the new Renaissance courts like that of the Medicis in Florence were like the old medieval royal or ducal courts. As in the Middle Ages they cultivated a life of leisure, political intrigue, and a sense of excellence and superiority. But the measure of excellence