New ways of thinking about the nature of humanity and the world emerged in the early fifteenth century, beginning on the Italian peninsula. The Crusades brought southern Europe into contact with Arab culture, increasing international contact and trade. Scholars uncovered long-forgotten Roman and Greek literature that had been preserved and studied by Islamic scholars. This intellectual revival became known as the Renaissance, or rebirth, referring to the reemergence of ancient knowledge.
Renaissance Italy was a patchwork of feudal domains, with lands belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, kingdoms, and city-states. Famous noble families such as the Medicis had grown wealthy as merchants, since Italy was ideally located for receiving goods from the Middle East and Asia along Mediterranean trade routes. This lucrative trade with the Islamic and Byzantine cultures allowed wealthy Italians to become patrons of painters, sculptors, and scientists. The period was also a celebration of the Roman past; classical architecture and engineering were reexamined and relearned.
Perhaps the single most important technological and cultural development of the Renaissance was the printing revolution. In 1456, Johann Gutenberg of Germany printed a complete edition of the Bible using the first printing press in the West (the Chinese had been using movable type for centuries). This printing revolution brought enormous changes to Europe. Printed books were less expensive and easier to read than copied manuscripts. The increase in the availability of books led to a rapid rise in literacy. European readers gained access to a wide range of knowledge on subjects including medicine, law, mathematics, and philosophy. Along with helping to spread classical knowledge and Renaissance ideas, these new printing presses helped fuel the religious upheaval that Europe experienced during the 1500s.
Just as the Renaissance inspired an era of exploration, it also created an atmosphere that encouraged debate and criticism of the existing order. The most powerful institution of the day was the Catholic Church, headquartered in Rome. It had held great power over kings and peasants alike for centuries, and it had grown large, wealthy, and corrupt. Practices such as selling forgiveness and salvation began to offend even those in the priesthood.
A movement to reform the Church grew out of these concerns. In 1517, in the German domain of Wittenburg, an obscure priest named Martin Luther posted a list of issues that he believed the Church should address. The main issues raised by the Protestant Reformation were:
Martin Luther and his fellow reformers unleashed a storm of controversy that eventually split the Catholic Church and divided Europe. Luther was excommunicated from the Church but gained the sympathy of German princes who adhered to his version of Christianity. At the time, German lands were divided in hundreds of small kingdoms and ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor, in this case Charles V of Spain, a staunch Catholic. Many of the Northern German princes resented having to support both the Church and a non-German emperor. The German kingdoms became divided into two armed camps, Catholics siding with the Church and Protestants siding with Luther. The resulting conflict devastated German lands, but ended in a treaty (the Peace of Augsburg, 1555) that enabled each prince to decide which religion—Catholic or Lutheran—would be the religion of his domain. Most states in northern Germany chose Lutheranism, while the south remained largely Catholic.
The Protestant movement spread from central Europe to the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, and Denmark. The English King Henry VIII, once a strong supporter of the Catholic Church, fell away from the Church after a dispute with the pope regarding his marriage. With the help of Parliament he created the Church of England, of which the English monarch became the head.
Two English political thinkers, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, lived through the horrors of the English Civil War and came to strikingly different conclusions about human nature and the proper form of government, providing the philosophical foundation for the Enlightenment. Hobbes believed absolute monarchy was needed to keep order, while Locke believed in self-government. According to Locke, people possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and government’s purpose is to protect these rights. If government fails at this job, Locke reasoned, the people had the right to overthrow it. This notion later inspired revolutionary thought in Europe and the Americas. Enlightenment thinkers were reformers, putting forth ideas like the following:
This new emphasis on free thought led to the questioning of traditional authority. Both the Church and the monarchy were challenged, and the political radicalism of the Enlightenment caused great anxiety in the courts of Europe. Though it started in England, the Enlightenment was centered in Paris, where it reached its peak in the mid-1700s. There, intellectuals called philosophes gathered to discuss politics and ideas. The philosophes believed that reason (one of their primary areas of interest, along with nature, happiness, progress, and liberty) could be applied to all aspects of life.
As a result of the Roman Catholic mission to China, Jesuits brought back Chinese knowledge to Europe. The Confucian civil service exams influenced European rulers, and the rational morality of Confucianism appealed to Enlightenment philosophers.
The development of modern science and Enlightenment philosophical ideals had a tremendous impact on the development of the modern world and the modern mentality. Prior to 1500, scholars relied mostly on classical texts and the Bible to answer questions about the natural world. The scientific revolution began as scientists challenged conventional ideas and used observation to understand the structure and composition of the universe. The Polish cleric and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus paved the way for modern astronomy when he put forth a heliocentric theory of the universe in 1543, contradicting the Church's belief in an Earth-centered universe. Building on this revolutionary discovery, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei constructed his own telescope in 1609 and used it to develop new theories about the universe. His findings angered both Catholic and Protestant leaders because they challenged the teachings and authority of the Christian churches. In fact, Galileo was put on trial before the Inquisition and forced to read a signed confession in which he stated that his ideas were false.
The scientific revolution led to the development of the scientific method, a logic-based approach to testing hypotheses through observation and experimentation. Use of the scientific method led to significant advances in the fields of physics, biology, medicine, and chemistry, as well as to the development of the social sciences in the late nineteenth century.
In the north of the Indian subcontinent, Guru Nanak (1469–1539) founded Sikhism around the the turn of the sixteenth century. Born to Hindu parents of the merchant caste, he is reputed by Sikh tradition to have traveled extensively. Nanak's declaration that “There is no Muslim, and there is no Hindu" captures the essence of Sikhism. An example of syncretism, it bridges Hinduism and Islam, incorporating beliefs from both while maintaining an anti-sectarian stance.
Sikhism would be led by a series of gurus, who would modify its practices. For example, priestesses would be allowed, divorce legalized, and both veils and sati banned. Initially a pacifistic faith, it would grow militant in response to violent prosecution under the Mughal empire from the mid-sixteenth century onward, culminating in the founding of the Sikh empire (1799–1849). However, Sikhism would maintain its focus on social justice.