Introduction

Societies seem to have an innate capacity for regeneration and reform. Perhaps no better example of this exists than Europe during the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, during the time of the Renaissance and Reformation. These movements would bring sweeping changes not only to Europe, but changes which would have dramatic implications for the entire world.

The epoch of Western civilization known as the Renaissance was not the first time that the people of Europe recovered from a prolonged political, economic, and cultural decline. During the Carolingian era, a new civilization emerged out of the wreckage of the Roman Empire in the West. Sufficient peace was established to permit the revival of art and scholarship in the monasteries. After the collapse of the Carolingian Empire and a relapse into barbarism, European civilization experienced another rebirth, which has been called "the Renaissance of the twelfth century." So profoundly were all facets of life revitalized, from agriculture to theology, during that period that we have been obliged to reconsider the crucial importance of the Renaissance that took place in Europe between 1300 and 1600.

In the past, the Middle Ages were often described as a period of barbaric manners and religious superstition or fanaticism., and scholars viewed the Renaissance as a sharp break from the medieval world. Today we recognize not only the heights attained by medieval men and women, but also the substantial continuity of development from medieval to early modern civilization. Thus, the Renaissance should properly be observed as a period of cultural transition-a bridge between medieval culture and modern times. Nevertheless, the exceptional accomplishments of Renaissance artists and intellectuals serve as evidence of the period's fertile creative environment, making it a unique and fascinating chapter in the history of Western civilization.

To understand the Reformations, we must stretch our historical imagination to encompass a broad range of human motives. In this period we find passionate conflict among such religious zealots as Luther, Calvin, and Loyola over points of doctrine, such as the presence of Christ in Holy Communion. A modern observer might ask why the protagonists could not simply agree to disagree and allow persons to believe as they saw best. To answer that question we must put ourselves into the minds of sixteenth-century men and women who assumed that religion was the ultimate service that God required of human beings and that only the Christian religion was true and pleasing to God. In such a climate, religious controversy was certain to become bitter, and it should not be surprising that religious discord could so often turn violent.

The passion that fueled religious conflict, however, also stimulated remarkable achievements of the human spirit. Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible, for example, a work of extraordinary poetic and religious power, has profoundly shaped German culture. A more gracious, if less intense passion also inspired the composition of The Book of Common Prayer by the Christian humanist Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. This masterpiece, like the works of Shakespeare, has exercised a strong and lasting influence on the development of English language and thought.