Absolutism And Humanism Essay

The medieval period began in 476 A.D after the fall of the Roman Empire and lasted until the beginning of the Renaissance period in the 14th century. The Catholic Church was the most important and powerful establishment, on the European continent; it had full control educationally and economically of the people and the state. Kings developed their higher authority among the people from their affiliation with the Catholic Church. The medieval period first was governed by feudalism, kings would pay the nobility with land in exchange for military service while, peasants provided labor in exchange for protection (PWH, p.480). Around the 11th century, feudalism started to change because of the modernization of agricultural machinery which, allowed

Both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment period created a new way of thinking, thus the “subject” wanted to become a “citizen” which, in theory, was an important revolutionary change of the individual (Paine,

496). Humanism opened a new chapter of the individual that allowed the personal thought to be expressed, however, if the remark was different from the standards of the church, consequences for that individual were applied. Despite the consequences, humanism started a drift from the Church, being the center of power, to the independence of the individual, which eventually overruled the church. The individuals curiosity of the world around them led to the questioning of society and nature, thus giving rise to the New Sciences. The scientific revolution, emerged in the early modern period, and excelled in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and astronomy. Galileo Galilei, an Italian scientist, was banned and silenced by the church because of his scientific ideas that did not meet Church principles. In a quote on page 20 in Shaping of the Modern World, “The holy Bible can never speak untruth. . . nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify,” Galileo insists that the bible is important, however, its rules are not set in stone meaning that