Heading North: Why the Renaissance Left Italy.

The Renaissance spreads north due, in part, to the wars of the Italian city-states - art work is stolen and sent north, soldiers are influenced by the artwork and Renaissance spirit, artists flee to the north to escape fighting.

It is in the last quarter of the 15th century that the Renaissance effectively goes north. Students from Low Countries (Netherlands, Belgium, Brussels), England, and France go to school in Italy in search of "new learning," and carry ideas back home.

Northern Humanists interpret Italian ideas and attitudes of classical antiquity, individualism, and humanism and adapt them to fit into the Northern traditions.

Self Portrait at 29 by Albrecht Durer

Morality Tales (Christian Humanism.)

Northern Renaissance was distinctly Christian in value:

Italy - pagan themes, Greco-Roman, secular
North - biblical characters and themes

The North also had goals of vast social reform based on Christian ideals.

Humanists in the North become "Christian Humanists," and want to develop an ethical way of life via a combination of the best of classical and Christian culture.

Example: calmness, stoic patience, broadmindedness should join love, hope, faith

It stresses the importance of reason over blind acceptance, believing that human intellect can bring about moral and institutional reform.

They believed that though human nature had been corrupted by sin, it was fundamentally good and capable of improvement. Improvement would come by way of education which leads to piety and an ethical way of life.

Christian Humanist Writers.

Thomas More

trained as a lawyer
entered government service under Henry VIII (was an ambassador to Flanders)
On a trip to Flanders he writes Utopia

Utopia literally means "no where;" it describes More's ideal socialist community on an island off the mainland of the New World. All children receive an education (primarily of Greco-Roman classics), but education doesn't end once they grow older - the goal of all education is to develop reasoning abilities. Adults spend time equally between manual labor or business pursuits and intellectual activities.

All profits are shared, there is absolute social equality. The citizens use gold and silver to make chamber pots and they prevent war by buying off their enemies. This is meant to convey the idea that basic problems in society are caused by greed.

More's ideas are radical for the time. Most people believed in inherent evil corruption of the individual, rather than the idea that society might shape behavior. More states acquisition and private property promote vice and civil disorder. Because society protects private property, society and its flawed institutions were responsible for corruption and war (society's fault, not individual.) The key to the improvement of the individual can only be accomplished by the improvement of society.

Erasmus

a monk
considered one of Europe's foremost experts of the Greek Language
saw many issues within the Church he wished could be reformed

Perhaps the most famous of all the Christian Humanists, Erasmus is known for his criticisms of the Church so much that he was often erroneously blamed for the Reformation that will follow. He was a devout Catholic who only sought to reform the Church, not split it apart. It was believed that Erasmus suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and that it manifested itself in him wanting to "cleanse" the church and return it to its rightful path after the excesses and immorality of the Renaissance popes.

Erasmus translated the bible into Greek, adding a humanist approach in order to have the most accurate version available. His work, In Praise of Folly, satirized the foibles he saw within the Catholic Church, in particular monastic life, worldly ambitions of the clergy and the hypocrisy he saw in church leaders. The book was widely popular and inspired many to call for reforms.

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