Rebirth for Some, Only Death for Others : Part I

The 14 and 1500’s saw social and religious ferment, economic growth, and dramatic advances in mining, metallurgy, printing, timekeeping, shipbuilding, navigation, and weaponry. Crafts, commerce, and urban life were all revitalized.

A. Karlan

The Renaissance: 1453-1600

The next period of European history is called the Renaissance. Renaissance is a French word that means rebirth. The Renaissance was an age of accelerated change, experimentation, and of great artistic and literary achievements. It was the time of Donatello, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo daVinci, and Raphael. The Italians in particular tried to recapture the glory of the Roman Empire by refurbishing their cities. It was a time of technological innovations, great discoveries, and intellectual revolutions. There was also a revival of interest in the writings of the ancient Greeks and the Romans. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, many of the remaining scholars of the Byzantine Empire fled to the West. They reintroduced the Greek tradition of learning and scholarship to the West and this new interest in learning was greatly enhanced by the invention of the printing press.

In 1454, the invention of the Gutenburg press (adapted from a previous Chinese invention and a wine press) began to make books available to the public quickly and cheaply. The classical knowledge of the ancient Greeks and Romans now moved from the domain of the Christian Church to the individual. As scholarship began to develop independently of the Church, the religious biases of the past were questioned. From this came a new way of thinking called humanism, the belief that man controlled his own fate, not God.

Economically this period was a prosperous almost giddy time and one of the reasons was that between 1470 and 1550 there was a slight warming trend in the global climate. The subsistence crisis and the plague had come to an end. It was a time with food to eat and money to spend. Those that survived inherited everything the dead had left behind. Those that took advantage of the new demand for specialty food and fiber became rich and the scarcity of laborers meant high wages. As the standard of living of the peasants rose there was again a demand for goods from abroad. This meant that there was once again money to be made importing luxury goods from the East, especially spices.

Spices played a special role in the culinary, economic and political life of Europe. Europeans were meat eaters by preference, but the supply was seasonal. A shortage of winter fodder made it essential that many cattle be slaughtered in the autumn. The meat soon deteriorated, even when it was preserved by salting. Spices helped to make it palatable; in addition they were reputed to be medicinal, many of them inspiring semi-mystical reverence.

Time Frame, a Time-Life Book Series

In 1453 the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople. The fall of Constantinople is generally seen as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. For the Christian Europeans, however, the taking over of the territory of the old Byzantine Empire by the Turkish Muslims meant that the old overland trade routes were essentially cut off. In an attempt to meet the demand for luxury goods and spices, the Portuguese began seeking a new sea route to East. This was made possible by new techniques in shipbuilding, a new means of navigation, the excitement of exploration, and the renewal of tax revenues. As early as 1433, Portuguese sailors had begun exploring the coast of Africa in an attempt to navigate around it to India. In 1488 they reached the tip of Africa opening a sea route to the Orient and the Spice Islands. Then in 1492, a man with a “better idea” attempted to reach the East by sailing west across open ocean instead of around Africa.

The man’s name was Cristoforo Columbus. He based his idea that the best way to get to China was by sailing westward on a rediscovered map of the Greek geographer Ptolomy. Unfortunately his idea hung on a miscalculation which had led Ptolomy to exaggerate the size of the Eurasian landmass. According to Ptolomy the landmass stretched halfway around the world. Based on Ptolomy’s map Columbus figured that the Indies must be less that 2500 miles from the Canary Islands. This was of course wrong but it was about the distance from Spain to the yet unknown (to Europe) continent of North America. Although he did not know it, even at the time of his death, Columbus’s journey west did not discover a new route to India but a whole "New World". And in the process, he had connected this New World with pathogens of the Old World for the first time. The ecological balance of human beings and their infectious diseases was to be disrupted once again.

Next Post :Rebirth for Some, Only Death for Others : Part II