How Did Humanism Affect The Renaissance

Effects of Humanism on Religion in the Renaissance The Renaissance is a time in history that introduced a vast number of new ideas. People were slowly moving out of the dark ages and embracing new concepts of thought. Also, with the help of new inventions such as the printing press, it had become easier for people to learn how to read and write. This had created a foundation for many Renaissance thinkers to help spread different ideas easily throughout the world. One of the numerous movements that spread rapidly during the Renaissance was Humanism. Humanism is a modern way of thinking that reevaluated texts by classical thinkers, that could be applied to the rising self awareness during the Renaissance. Many of the concepts exhibited through …show more content…
Ideas that were introduced from humanism contradicted key beliefs of the Roman Catholic church. The chain of being was a chain that illustrated the order of the hierarchy of how things were supposed to be. This chain included the divine, starting at God, then slowly dropped according to significance until non-living things, the last, being rocks was reached. Humanist ideas disagreed with the Great Chain of Being. It did not hold any authority to the humanist for the reason that “humanist scholars saw humans as superior to nature” (Corrick 16). Several reformers of the Reformation were humanist of Northern Europe. Majority of humanist also were usually important members of the church. Many of them were bishops, or clergy men, who believed the best solution for reform in the church was to try to establish change from within, rather than outright attacking the church. Not only did Christian humanist reformers disagree with the chain of being, but “church critics were also upset by two common money-raising practices of the renaissance popes: simony and the selling of indulgences” (26). In response to attempts to get rid of corrupt practices such as these, Erasmus, published The Praise of Folly, a work that openly “ridicules the excesses and weaknesses of the clergy” (26). Albeit that the Northern European humanists worked actively to help to reform the Catholic church and their practices, humanism “was not meant to be a challenge to chrisitan faith or catholic orthodoxy” (Nauert 63-64). Numerous humanists considered themselves to be adequate Christians. They did not believe that their studies in any way conflicted with their faith. Yet a few, such as Petrarch “expressed doubts about his own spiritual worthiness” (64), even if their efforts as humanists were to improve the