HUMANISM/HUMANIST
Humanism was the principal intellectual movement of the European Renaissance; a humanist was a teacher or follower of humanism. In the simplest sense, the term "humanism" implies that a certain group of school subjects known since ancient times as the studia humanitatis (humanistic studies) provides the best preparation for life and should become the central focus for the education of the ruling classes. The American scholar Paul Oskar Kristeller, who developed this definition of humanism, defined these "humanistic studies" as five: grammar (that is, the grammar of Latin, the language of education), rhetoric (the study of the art of effective communication and persuasion, both written and oral), moral philosophy (the art of making responsible choices in everyday life), poetry (which implied the reading of ancient literature), and history (regarded as a source of examples showing the consequences of moral choices).
The "humanists" regarded these subjects (especially the first three) as the studies most practical for real life, contrasting them with the more theoretical subjects that had received greatest emphasis in medieval grammar schools and universities, such as logic, metaphysics, and natural science, subjects that dealt with abstract and theoretical issues rather than the issues faced daily by the ruling classes of the Italian cities. Humanists took as their immediate goal the revival of the classical Latin and Greek languages and literatures, but this goal was intimately linked with the broader purpose of transforming all aspects of European civilization along lines inspired by study of ancient literature, in other words, the goal of bringing about a cultural renaissance or rebirth.
Some recent scholars have associated the origins of this classicizing intellectual movement with the emergence of self-governing urban republics in northern and central Italy in the late Middle Ages. Leading citizens of these republics found that the older medieval culture, attuned to a society dominated by clergy and aristocratic warriors, did not meet the needs of a rapidly developing urban milieu. Initially, the higher culture of the Italian cities was dominated by men trained in law and the art of dictamen, the composition of formal Latin letters, orations, and documents needed for political, diplomatic, legal, and commercial life. But by the end of the 13 th century, there was a new interest in ancient Latin literature and a desire to create a modern Latin literature modelled on the heritage of ancient Rome. This interest in the classics spread from poetry to various prose genres, and by the end of the 14th century, humanism had come to imply a reorientation of pre-university education in order to emphasize the studia humanitatis. Student slang called teachers of these subjects humanistae (humanists), but the term also covers people of many professions who shared the enthusiasm for ancient languages and literatures. The abstract noun, "humanism," was a coinage of a much later period, originating in early 19th-century Germany, but the terms "humanist" and "humanistic studies" have their roots in the language and life of the Renaissance itself.
Sometimes, notably among humanists living in the republic of Florence and inspired by the humanist chancellors Coluccio Salutati and Leonardo Bruni, humanism was linked to the aristocratic republican ideology of Cicero and other leaders of the ancient Roman Republic. The example of Roman ideals of citizenship was used to inspire Florentine resistance to threats to the city’s independence by the Visconti dukes of Milan. Some modern scholars have defined a subtype, "civic humanism," and contend that there was an undercurrent of hostility to monarchy and at least a latent preference for republican forms of government inherent in the admiration for Cicero and republican Rome shared by all humanists. The thought of Salutati, Bruni, and Niccolò Machiavelli does display some evidence of republican political ideology. In general, however, humanism seems to have been neutral on the relative merits of republicanism and monarchy. The ideal of humanist education as the best preparation of young men for political duty was easily adapted to the politics and court life of the monarchical regimes that prevailed in most Italian cities and in virtually all of transalpine Europe. The well-educated humanist could become the adviser to a prince just as well as he could be the active citizen of a republic. In either case, however, the excellence of humanistic education as useful preparation for public service could be upheld.
In any case, the educational goals of humanistic education were clearly secular, intended to prepare boys from the urban elites to take their proper role in society. This secular orientation caused later scholars of Renaissance civilization to define humanism as a non-religious or even anti-religious philosophy of life that viewed a fulfilling earthly life as the goal of human activity and either rejected religion entirely or marginalized it as a set of rituals and superstitions that fostered the maintenance of social order. This definition of humanism as a secular philosophy of life is implied in the work of the most influential historian of the Italian Renaissance, Jacob Burckhardt, but it is essentially a product of Enlightenment and 19th-century thought and has little following among recent historians of humanism.
From the end of the 14th century, humanistic culture was enriched by a growing interest in Greek language and literature. Renaissance humanists enthusiastically hunted for surviving works of ancient literature that had been unknown to educated people of the Middle Ages. After the 1450s, the new art of printing contributed greatly to the diffusion and development of humanistic culture. During the 15th and 16th centuries, humanists developed sophisticated techniques of textual, linguistic, and historical criticism that often challenged medieval beliefs and practices. Thus humanism came to imply certain assumptions about intellectual method that, while not constituing a formal system of philosophy capable of replacing medieval scholasticism, tended to erode confidence in traditional learning and exercised a generally solvent effect on established systems of belief.
As humanism spread into northern Europe during the late 15 th and early 16th centuries, humanists like Lefevre d’Etaples and Erasmus extended their scholarly interests to embrace study of the documents of ancient Christian religion, giving rise to a movement sometimes called "Christian humanism" or "biblical humanism." This humanism aspired to apply knowledge about both pagan and Christian antiquity to produce a general reform and renewal of the church and Christian spirituality. "Christian humanism" was closely linked to the origins of the Protestant Reformation, which split the humanists into Protestant and Catholic camps but did not destroy the dominance of humanistic subjects and classical learning over the education of European elites.
HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
Series of wars between France and England that began with the decision of King Edward III of England to invade France in 1337 and lasted sporadically until 1453, when the French finally drove the English armies from French soil. The war fell into three main periods: a period of active fighting from 1337 down to a truce signed in 1360, a period of relatively little military action, interrupted only by occasional raids, from 1360 to 1415, and a final determined effort of the English under King Henry V to either conquer all of France or divide it with their ally the duke of Burgundy, a phase in which France was pushed to the very brink of defeat. This war is conventionally defined as part of medieval rather than Renaissance history, but its course coincided with the rise of Renaissance civilization in Italy.
The causes that produced war were essentially medieval: the awkward feudal relationship between the kings of England (who held many feudal principalities, including all of the great duchy of Gui-enne, as fiefs under the suzerainty of the king of France) and the kings of France, who longed to end the anomalous situation in which the English king controlled more French territory than did the French king himself. Because of frequent intermarriages between royal families, Edward III regarded himself rather than Philip VI as the rightful heir to the French throne. Although Edward’s claim to the French throne was useful mainly as a device to attract allies among dissident French nobles, this dynastic issue was another product of medieval conditions, and in the final phase of the war, Henry V (unlike Edward III) seems to have intended to enforce his right to the French throne and to have had a systematic military plan to conquer northern and central France city by city and establish himself as king.
The war was fought with the military organization and methods typical of the later Middle Ages, and while the use of artillery during the siege of cities in the final phase of the war does represent the beginning of a shift toward modern military technology, the many English victories resulted mainly from their effective use of archery and their adoption of tactics suited to exploit the use of archers in the face of the traditional French reliance on heavy cavalry.
The war affected Renaissance Italy most decisively near its beginning, when the inability of Edward III to repay the enormous loans he had received from Italian banking firms to finance his war precipitated a severe financial crisis in the commercial cities of northern and central Italy (see DEPRESSION, ECONOMIC).
France suffered terrible losses of life and property during all periods of active fighting and even during times of truce, since discharged mercenary soldiers continued to ravage the countryside as brigands. England, which held the military upper hand in the opening phases of the conflict, eventually also suffered financial and political exhaustion. In terms of Renaissance culture, the damage inflicted on France seems to have retarded a growing interest in ancient classical civilization that was evident during the early 14th century. Only after the invaders had been ejected in 1453 was France able to resume these interests. Thus the timing of the spread of Renaissance culture into France was affected by the war.
HUSS, JOHN
(Jan Hus, ca. 1370-1415). Bohemian priest and religious reformer, educated at the University of Prague and in 1402 appointed preacher in the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague. He became an extremely popular preacher, highly critical of the worldliness and corrupt lives of the clergy. Huss also became interested in the theology of the English heretic John Wyclif, whose ideas had spread among some Czech theologians. His surviving sermons, however, are dominated by concern for moral reform and do not uphold the doctrines for which Wyclif had been condemned. His influence rested in part on resentment by ethnic Czechs against the traditional dominance of the national church by the large German minority.
Huss’ agitation for reform of the church eventually led the Archbishop of Prague to try to silence his sermons. His defiance of this attempt was backed by mobs of supporters. In 1409 the king transferred control of the local university from the German scholars, who had traditionally been dominant, to the Czechs. Most of the Germans soon left for Leipzig, where they founded a new university, and Huss himself was elected rector of the Czech university. The claim of his opponents that he was a follower of the doctrines of Wyclif (whose works had been condemned in 1403) was at best an exaggeration, though books written by Wyclif were circulating among Czech theologians. But Huss did protest against the burning of Wyclif’s books and as a result was excommunicated. He appealed first to the Roman curia and then to the authority of Christ, but he was never in personal danger, since not only the king but also the overwhelming majority of the Czech-speaking population supported him.
In 1412, when Pope John XXIII proclaimed an indulgence to raise money for his war against the king of Naples, Huss denounced the indulgence as a perversion of the crusade. The pope responded by laying Prague under an interdict as long as Huss was allowed to live there. Huss relieved the city of this burden by leaving for a self-imposed exile in the countryside, where he wrote several treatises dealing with simony, clerical immorality, and the authority of the church hierarchy but also spread his ideas among the rural population. In 1414 the Council of Constance, assembled to end the Western Schism, invited him to appear and explain his position. Although the Holy Roman Emperor promised him safe conduct, once he arrived in Constance, the council declared that promises made to heretics were not binding. Huss was imprisoned, faced with demands to recant his teachings, and upon his refusal to accept the accuracy of the supposedly Wycliffite passages extracted from his books, was burned at the stake.
News of the execution of Huss led to a national uprising of the Czech people. Efforts of the local hierarchy to use force against his followers were resoundingly defeated, and when later popes attempted to mount crusades against the Hussites, the crusading armies were crushed.
HUSSITES
Followers of the Bohemian (Czech) religious reformer John Huss. After his betrayal and execution as a heretic by the Council of Constance in 1415, his followers rose up against the church. Angry crowds attacked churches and convents; priests and monks were massacred; and officials of King Wenceslaus who tried to arrest Hussite leaders for heresy were killed by mobs. When the new king, the Emperor Sigismund, tried to take possession of Prague with the aid of a German army in 1420, an army of radical peasants defeated his army and forced him to flee.
Under the pressure of external attack, the Hussite movement split into two factions. The more moderate group, the Utraquists, constituted chiefly by the middle and upper classes, set limited goals, reflecting their understanding of the actual teachings of Huss. They demanded little more than the repression of blatant corruption in the church and the administration of communion to the laity in both kinds (sub utraque specie). The latter demand came to be the symbolic marker of their movement. The more radical faction was known as the Taborites, recruited mainly from the poorer classes and named from the town of Tabor in southern Bohemia. They demanded a drastic restructuring of the Bohemian church that would subject the clergy to secular law and authorize the confiscation of church property. They rejected any belief or practice not literally commanded in the New Testament; they recognized only two sacraments, baptism and communion; they elected their own bishops and priests and permitted laymen as well as clergy to preach. They rejected belief in purgatory, opposed indulgences and prayers for the dead, repudiated veneration of saints, and destroyed pictures and statues in churches. They also provided the most fervent soldiers for the national army commanded by an experienced Czech soldier, Jan Zizka.
Thus Bohemia became bitterly divided into three groups, those who wanted to restore medieval Catholicism, those who wanted some limited reforms and the granting of communion in both kinds to the laity (the Utraquists), and the Taborites. In effect, the Taborites demanded a social revolution as well as sweeping ecclesiastical reforms. Civil war among these factions became endemic for almost 20 years, complicated by repeated efforts by imperial officials and papal legates to invade the country and restore Catholic orthodoxy by force. The Taborite-dominated armies repeatedly defeated these mainly German invaders. The last crusade, led in 1431 by Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, ended in humiliating defeat. Eventually, in 1433 and 1434, the Utraquists, who were more numerous, overwhelmed the Taborite army and entered into negotiations with King Sigismund which in 1436 produced the Compactata (Compacts of Prague) that guaranteed religious tolerance to both Utraquists and Catholics. The papacy never regarded the emperor’s concessions as lawful, but in effect the treaty made Bohemia the first European nation in which the religious unity of medieval Christendom came to an end. The Utraquists remained a large and legally recognized religious group into the age of the Reformation, and the defeated Taborites survived as small sectarian groups that re-emerged as radical Protestants in the 16th century.
HUTTEN, ULRICH VON
(1488-1523). German humanist and Latin poet. Born into a family of imperial knights, Hutten was educated at the Benedictine abbey of Fulda and intended for a monastic career. In 1505 he fled from the monastery and spent several years engaged in humanistic studies at several German universities, eventually receiving a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Frankfurt an der Oder. His De arte versificandi / On the Art of Writing Poetry (1511) demonstrated his mastery of ancient Latin prosody and was frequently reprinted. Moving to Vienna in 1511, Hutten came under the influence of the patriotic humanists patronized by the Emperor Maximilian I. This contact aroused his interest in politics and transformed him into a literary partisan of Maximilian against his foreign enemies. Hutten visited Italy in 1512-1514 and again in 1515-1517, but the experience served merely to confirm his resentment of Italians’ disdain for Germans as a nation of barbarians.
Hutten also became an outspoken defender of the German Hebraist Johann Reuchlin against attacks by the theologians and Dominican friars of Cologne. A number of young humanists interpreted the attacks on Reuchlin as evidence of a plot to destroy humanistic studies in Germany, and in 1515 and 1517 some of this group published a savage satire defending Reuchlin and depicting his foes as a pack of ignoramuses and hypocrites. This topic was the Letters of Obscure Men, a collection of fictitious letters addressed by imaginary members of the Cologne faculty to their friend Ortwin Gratius. The first part of the collection was probably the work of the Erfurt humanist Crotus Rubeanus, while the second part, far more personal and vituperative in its attacks, was probably Hutten’s work. Inspired in part by his ardent German patriotism and in part by his experiences in Italy and his conviction that the Italian-dominated papal curia was deliberately exploiting and humiliating the German nation, Hutten began what he called his war against the Romanists, a series of satirical Latin poems denouncing the tyranny exercised by Rome over Germans and calling for reform of the church.
Hutten’s initial denunciation of conditions in the church was exclusively political and nationalist in tone. When he first heard reports of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, he contemptuously dismissed the controversy as just another squabble among rival monks. But when Luther showed remarkable courage in upholding his convictions, Hutten changed into an outspoken defender of the Saxon reformer. After being excommunicated in 1521, Hutten took shelter with the imperial knight Franz von Sickingen and encouraged Sickingen’s unsuccessful attack on the estates of the archbishop of Trier. After Sickingen’s death from injuries suffered in battle, Hutten fled to Switzerland, first to Basel and then to Zürich, and eventually died of a long-standing syphilitic infection in 1523. Hutten’s espousal of Luther’s cause produced a bitter break with the leading figure of reformist humanism, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Among German patriots of the 19th century, when the country was struggling to attain political unity, Hutten was interpreted as a tragic hero who had defended his nation’s freedom but had been overcome by Roman deceit and conspiracy.
INNOCENT VIII
(Giovanni Battista Cibò). Pope from 1484 to 1492, generally classed as one of the worldly popes who tolerated corruption in the church and neglected spiritual matters and church reform in their pursuit of wealth and power. As a patron of the arts, he is remembered for the construction of the Villa Belvedere at Rome, a building inspired by Roman architecture and decorated by paintings by Bernardo Pinturicchio and Andrea Mantegna. He is also notorious as the first pope who openly acknowledged his own illegitimate sons and daughters (begotten before his ordination to the priesthood) and used his authority to advance their careers.
INQUISITION
Judicial agency created under papal authority for the discovery, prosecution, and punishment of heresy and certain other acts defined as criminal under canon law, such as bigamy and sodomy. Christianity had always exercised the power to expel members who rejected its doctrines or moral requirements. After it became the official religion of the Roman Empire during the fourth century, imperial legislation made the local bishops judges over their community. In the first half of the Middle Ages, the bishop or his judicial deputy dealt with cases of heresy but never claimed the right to take a defendant’s life. In the early 13th century, after the suppression of the Albigensian heresy in southern France by a crusade authorized by Pope Innocent III, the Roman curia concluded that the local bishops had been too lax. Since the Albigensian heretics of southern France remained stubborn and elusive, in 1233 Pope Gregory IX began appointing special inquisitors in some regions, charged with the duty of suppressing heresy.
Although the procedures followed by these inquisitors seem harsh when evauated by modern standards, they were modelled on the practices of Roman law. An inquisitor began by publicizing a grace period of 30 days during which heretics could identify themselves, abjure their errors, and be reconciled to the church. After this interval, all good Christians were supposed to denounce known heretics. Because of fear that powerful individuals would intimidate potential accusers, the names of accusers and their testimony were kept secret. Accused persons were, however, invited to present a list of personal enemies who might have made false accusations. In cases where there was substantial suspicion of heresy, the judges had the authority to interrogate the accused under torture, another procedure borrowed from Roman law. Inquisitors were fully aware that using torture could be a means of getting the testimony one wanted rather than getting the truth. Torture was regarded as a last resort, but it was used.
Being charged before an inquisitorial tribunal was a serious matter. Yet a substantial proportion of defendants was acquitted. Of those found guilty, most were assigned modest penalties and then released under supervision. For a person who had been condemned previously and had relapsed into heresy, however, a sentence of death was virtually certain. Although theoretically, being a church court, the inquisitorial court did not execute condemned heretics, in such cases guilty persons were "relaxed to the secular arm"—that is, to the secular government—which was then expected to carry out the execution.
Although historians have often used the term "inquisition" loosely, the medieval inquisition was not a formal institution but merely a number of individuals (usually Dominican or Franciscan friars) commissioned to investigate and punish heresy in a region. They were not active in all parts of Europe, and where they were active their efficacy was often questionable, though they did succeed in exterminating the Albigensian heresy. There was no institutional network, no systematic communication between inquisitors, and no system of supervision to ensure that their work was effective or free from abuses. In addition, since diocesan bishops still retained their own judicial authority, there were often conflicts of jurisdiction in the investigation and prosecution of heretics.
ISAAK, HEINRICH
(ca. 1450-1517). Netherlandish composer. Although born in the duchy of Brabant, he followed the pattern common in the lives of many Netherlandish composers by making his career abroad. His most important employment was in Florence during the high point of the Florentine Renaissance under Lorenzo de’Medici. He served the Medici family but was also a singer in the chapel of San Giovanni and in the cathedral choir. After Lorenzo’s death in 1492, he was employed by the Emperor Maximilian I. In the emperor’s service, Isaak enjoyed relative freedom of movement and lived at Vienna, Innsbruck, and Constance. He also spent time at the court of Ercole d’Este, duke of Ferrara, and he spent the last years of his life back in Florence, where he had married the daughter of a prosperous butcher.
Isaak produced many musical compositions, both religious and secular. His Choralis Constantinus, a set of liturgical offices covering the whole ecclesiastical year, is a remarkable synthesis of the tradition of Flemish music out of which his own career developed. One of his most admired works was his musical setting of the lament for the death of Lorenzo de’Medici composed by the Florentine humanist and poet Angelo Poliziano. Isaak’s secular compositions are even more highly regarded than his ecclesiastical music. They include settings for vernacular poems by Poliziano and a number of three-part and four-part German songs.
ISABELLA, QUEEN OF SPAIN
(1451-1504). Queen of Castile from 1474. Her marriage to Ferdinand, heir to the crown of Aragon, in 1469 and the subsequent ascension of Ferdinand to the Aragonese throne in 1479 meant that for the first time, both of the major states of Spain were under the rule of a single royal couple. While each of them functioned as the primary ruler in his or her own kingdom, they ruled as a team, making their marriage more than just a personal union of two kingdoms but rather the foundation of a developing national community. Hence the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand laid the foundations for a powerful European state, which by the beginning of the 16th century had become the most powerful kingdom in Christian Europe. The children of their marriage became heirs to both parts of Spain. The marriage of their daughter Juana to Philip of Habsburg, son of the Emperor Maximilian I, hereditary prince of the Netherlands and heir to the numerous Habsburg territories in the German Empire.
While Ferdinand generally took the lead in matters of foreign policy, becoming a leading figure in the wars and diplomacy of the early 16th century, Isabella concentrated her efforts on Castilian domestic policy. In 1492 she and Ferdinand completed the conquest of the last Islamic principality left in Spain, the kingdom of Granada. They founded the Spanish Inquisition, and it became the first public institution that exercised power over both halves of Spain. Their policies also included the expulsion of the remaining unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and forcible (though for a long time mainly nominal) efforts to convert the Muslim population to Christianity; the sponsorship of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the route to the Americas in 1492; and the organization of the first set of institutions for the new American colonies. Isabella and Ferdinand also asserted royal supremacy over the higher nobility, acted to suppress brigandage and civil disorder in Castile, organized a powerful national army, and assured the crown of adequate tax revenues to meet the costs of domestic and foreign policy.
Isabella was deeply religious, and while her religious zeal led to policies like the persecution of Jewish and Muslim minorities and the creation of the Inquisition, it also embraced efforts to reform the church, to ensure the availability of educated men for service in ecclesiastical and royal administration, and to promote devout, well-educated, and competent men to high positions in the church. In recognition of their liberation of southern Spain from Moorish rule and their many actions to favor the church, Ferdinand and Isabella received papal designation as "their Catholic Majesties" and have been known as "the Catholic Monarchs" ever since their own time.
