Christian Humanism

The humanist spirit did not remain confined to the Italian city-states.
In regions outside
Italy, the new learning was synthesized with basic Christian beliefs and the subject of study was
usually related to Christian themes. It was titled Christian humanism because at most places,
the church, popes and Christian scholars officially sanctioned it. It focused on the spread of
Biblical study and criticism of medieval theology. Thus, it was less secular in nature.
Consequently, northern European universities tended to specialize in theological studies, and
the most prominent buildings in almost all the leading northern towns were cathedrals.
Northern Christian humanists looked for practical guidance from purely biblical,
religious precepts. Like their Italian counterparts, they sought wisdom from antiquity, but the
antiquity they had in mind was Christian i.e. the New Testament and the early Christian fathers.
The classical learning and Biblical study, according to these humanists would lead to greater
harmony between faith and intellect. The printing press played an important role in the spread
of the new learning. The print shops became important vehicles of cultural exchange and
communication and centres for the clerics and laymen to get acquainted with the new humanist
ideas on subjects like law, theology, philosophy and science.
Multiple copies of texts of even rare manuscripts were made available and the printing
press acted as an important tool of the humanist propaganda. The origins of Christian
humanism can be seen in the Low Countries of the north, particularly in the Netherlands. It
originated from the mystical spirit of the laymen who were associated with Christian
Renaissance. The most famous was the movement of devotio moderna. It taught the Christian
ideas in the form of spiritual communion with God through Christ. For them Christian life was
more important than Christian doctrine. The greatest figure among the Christian humanists was
Desiderius Erasmus.
Erasmus provided an intellectual character to Christianity by fusing together learning as

essential to an understanding of theology and piety was seen as an element of the human spirit.
His ‘Praise of Folly’ was written against scholastic pedantry and dogmatism and also against the
ignorant and superstitious masses. His other book, Colloquies was against superstitious rituals
and magic; Handbook of a Christian Knight, stressed on the value piety; and the Complaint of
Peace pleaded for Christian pacifism. But the most impressive was his Greek New Testament,
with explanatory notes and his own new Latin translation, making the word of God available to
all.
Erasmus displayed a startling style of Latin prose and wit and dazzled his readers with
his verbal expression. His works demonstrate his skill of writing which deftly used irony,
sarcasm, symbolism and sharp criticism. Similarly, Tomas More was trying to find a solution to
the ills of an autocratic court by creating an equally dominating state in his work, ‘Utopia’. The
essence of the good society for him was the evolution of money economy and private property.
This imaginary picture of an ideal community was a commentary on the glaring abuses of the
time. The Utopia was to provide common goals and larger intellectual pursuits to its members to
enable them to practice the natural virtues of wisdom, justice and moderation.
Oxford and Cambridge universities became the chief centres of literary activities. Hooker
emerged as a great prose writer, while Wyatt and Surrey started the new literary movement in
the mid-16th century. Surrey successfully introduced the use of blank verse in the English poetry
and Spencer’s The Faerie Queene laid the poetic tradition in England. English literature under
the influence of humanism developed drama. William Shakespeare used historical themes and
romantic figures in his literary creations. He was a playwright of comedy as well as tragedy,
sentiment and fantasy. In France, the highly accomplished poets Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim
du Bellay wrote elegant sonnets in the style of Petrarch.
Guillaume Bude’s Quintuplex Psalter presents a unique combination of classical and

Christian elements. Like Erasmus, Rabelais, the French poet, satirized religious ceremonialism,
ridiculed scholasticism, scoffed at superstitions, and pilloried every form of bigotry. The
humanist movement in Spain remained an orthodox form of Christian humanism and was led
by Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros. His education programme concentrated on theology, natural
philosophy, law, Latin, Greek and Hebrew. The greatest work from Portugal in this period was
The Lusiads, an epic poem by Luis Vaz de Camoes.
In German humanism arose out of a decentralized political system and had support from
a large number of people in the cities and towns who had suffered because of socio-economic
changes. The humanist movement increasingly concentrated on reforms of political society and
attacks on the papacy, thereby creating a congenial atmosphere for religious reformation. The
northern European Renaissance architects combined elements of the late medieval French
flamboyant Gothic style with an up-to-date emphasis on classical horizontality to produce some
of the most impressively distinctive architectural landmarks ever constructed in France.
Pierre Lescot the French architect hewed closely to the classicism of Italian Renaissance
masters in constructing a facade that emphasized classical pilasters and pediments. Equally
impressive are the artfully proportioned aristocratic country houses of the northern Italian
architect Andrea Palladio. In the field of painting Jerome Hieronymus Bosch, a Dutch, created
caricatures of human sinfulness and depicted the cruelties of selfishness. Rembrandt van Rijn
concentrated on depicting ordinary people, their character and emotions, and religious themes.
Albrecht Durer, a German, mastered Italian Renaissance techniques of proportion, perspective,
and modeling. In sculptor, however, his nudes are seldom lacking their fig leaves.
In his paintings the serenely radiant St. Jerome, Knight, Death, and Devil offers a
stirring visual depiction of Erasmus’s ideal Christian knight, and his Four Apostles intones a
solemn hymn to the dignity and penetrating insight of Durer’s favorite New Testament authors.
His unfinished portrait of Erasmus was completed by Hans Holbein, who also captured Sir
Thomas More. These two portraits depict that Renaissance culture’s greater commitment to
recapturing the essence of human individuality created the environment in which Holbein was
able to make Erasmus and More come to life. Attention was also being paid to gardening and
horticulture.
Between 1450 and 1600, great strides were made in music particularly polyphony. The
flow was from northern Europe towards Italy. The technique of polyphonic music was developed
by a group of Flemish School. Obrecht developed spontaneous and melodious music and was
based on a form that was called ‘vocal orchestration’, belonged to this school. There was another
famous school of music that was based on the principle of ‘imitation’, founded by Ockghem.
Another distinct trend was the gradual elimination of instruments from vocal music that led to
the creation of pure unaccompanied style focusing on melody. In France, Josquin des Pres made
his music more expressive than others by basing them on sentiment and mood of the words.
The English musicians not only adopted the madrigal from Italy but also perfected music
in the form of songs and instrumental creations. In the Elizabethan period, music became
considerably secularized, which was earlier solely for the church. The music composers of
Venice developed a brilliant form of choral music and made colourful use of instruments. The
two different trends of music compositions-secular and the sacred music -gained considerable
popularity and reflected the typical Renaissance spirit of learning and experimentation.

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The humanist spirit did not remain confined to the Italian city-states.

Erasmus provided an intellectual character to Christianity by fusing together learning as

Guillaume Bude’s Quintuplex Psalter presents a unique combination of classical and

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