Peoples Of Europe During The Renaissance example essay topic

If what Historian Lisa Jardine said in Worldly Goods is true, and that "The world we inhabit today, with its ruthless competitiveness, fierce consumerism, restless desire for ever wider horizons, for travel, discovery and innovation, a world hemmed in by the small mindedness of petty nationalism and religious bigotry but refusing to bow to it, is a world which was made in the Renaissance", then certainly each point that Jardine made must have been rooted in the time of the Renaissance. Basically, I agree with her argument and say that the world in which we live in today had its start in the Renaissance. In regards to the ruthless competitiveness that Jardine argues encompasses our world today, what examples of this competitiveness do we have in records as starting in the time of the Renaissance? The answer is plenty. Increased European contact with the Far East brought about a capitalistic pursuit of profit, particularly to the Italian city-states. This type of trade had never been seen before in Europe, and completely revolutionized the concept of commerce and economics.

It slowly brought the harvest of vast amounts of money, and of capital that would allow more trade and hence more money to take place. It is human nature, and it was undoubtedly the same in Europe during the Renaissance, to start to be a little greedy. Merchants traded with the Muslims and acquired never before seen items, foods, and technologies, and in turn sold these acquired foreign goods and made huge profits. Greed was sure to rear its ugly head. Different merchants would sell the same thing and try to make as much money as they could.

If you were to look at the "competitiveness" of the times before this new type of capitalistic trade came about, you would see a world of local princes and vassals, and de-centralized power that kept the same technologies and had a sort of symbiotic relationship between the different parts" peasants grew the food, gave part of the harvest to the local powers, and nothing much changed, it was a cycle that repeated itself constantly. Competitiveness was not necessary at this stage. But when "modern" commerce started to happen, and merchants started making huge amounts of profits, and power slowly shifted to the cities and the middle class, it was absolutely necessary to begin a cycle of ruthless competitiveness. This competition was essential in order to make the system work, and set the stage for the rest of the Renaissance.

Therefore, since this type of competitiveness had never been seen before in Europe until the Renaissance, it has directly impacted the competition that we in the modern world operate by. Jardine speaks about a fierce consumerism that hit Europe, and subsequently, influenced the modern world. No one can argue with the fact that the United States is a very fierce consumerist society, but did that consumerism start during the Renaissance? The answer, once again, is yes. The new commerce systems that were being implemented could only succeed if a market of willing buyers existed, therefore the fostering of a consumer society kept the economic engine of the time alive and running.

Without that consumerism, and the development of the market that merchants could sell their goods in, this new type of capitalistic commerce could not have survived. Europe would have been forced to resort back to as it was before. Our world today is a consumer oriented one, and it was only with the changes of the Renaissance economy, and the merchants' need for a common market to sell their goods that our consumer society of today could be allowed to exist. Jardine also writes about the Renaissance's restless desire for even wider horizons. But what does that mean? I take it to mean the desire of the time to begin to explain the unexplainable.

I believe that during the Renaissance the peoples of Europe finally started to ask questions, which opened up a whole world of possibilities. But why? Once again, you have to go back to the arrangements of the time before the Renaissance. On one hand you have the nobles and the landed elites, and on the other hand you have the peasants who support the nobles. For the most part there was no middle class, because the middle class could only come about with trade and trade was not the source of profits at that time as it would come to be. The whole scheme of nobles ruling over peasants, and peasants supporting the nobles, and the power of Europe being diffused and spread out is an endless cycle-nothing suggests that the political and economic system of the time before the Renaissance would grow into something else, it could not develop into what we would call modern thought.

But, add foreign trade and great wealth to the picture, and see the peasants slowly moving out of that lower class and into the wealthy and powerful middle class, and one can see how the desire for even wider horizons could be born. The people who had nothing, and who were nothing, were suddenly populating the cities, leaving the countryside, gaining wealth and power and learning and asking all sorts of questions that had never been asked at that point. I would speculate that we people of today are curious, and we have a desire for wider horizons. But put yourself in the shoes of the people of the Renaissance, and a once constricted world began to loosen up. For that reason, the peoples of Europe during the Renaissance did have a restless desire for wider horizons. Jardine also points out the modern worlds desire for travel?

What other point in history was the European man allowed to venture out into the unknown? At what other point than the Renaissance did the technology, the opportunity, and the reason (i. e., money) for long distance travel exist? The once forbidden and deadly Muslim world, and the inability to reach the East except by going through Muslim territory to the east of the Mediterranean had stopped all advances of Europe in travel. But why? Partly because once new ships capable of long distance travel were developed in the Renaissance and once new travel routes were discovered, and once the Muslim world was no longer forbidden-Renaissance man was willing and capable of exploring more and more in search of more profit.

No other time in history, not even during the Roman Empire, did Europeans have the desire or the ability to travel outside of the immediate areas of Europe, and do so relatively safely. The Renaissance opened up the modern world's desire to see the world, and to make it smaller. Jardine also asserted that the Renaissance saw the first coming of an age of discovery and innovation. I would have to agree completely. Innovation and exploration is what the Renaissance is known for.

It was a time of change. The pursuit of money led to the development of individualism, because it was the individual that made the profit. This was unlike anything Europe had ever seen before. Discovery and innovation came because the peoples of Europe started asking questions they had never asked before, and the possibilities of the answers to the questions were endless. Europe had to innovate, and had to discover because it was in unknown territory, surrounded by the darkness and unable to know any bit of familiarity. Europe could not rely on what they had done in the past, because the time Europe was in was unlike the time of the past.

Innovation, fueled by individualism, was a necessity. The only part of Jardine's argument that I disagreed with was her assertion that our world of today, with its small-mindedness of petty nationalism and religious bigotry, during the Renaissance. I believe this to be an impossibility. If indeed we are a world of petty nationalism and religious bigotry, which is still up for argument, this way of living could not have been shaped during the Renaissance. The possibility exists that it had its roots there, but would have been impossibly to have been completely formed there. I say that for two reasons.

The first reason is that nationalism could not have been formed during the Renaissance because there were no nations. The Church was the only unified force in Europe at the time. From the economic changes brought about during the Renaissance, the once decentralized power began to be formed into a more centralized state. But the nation did not exist, therefore nationalism could not have been started during the Renaissance. Keep in mind that the Renaissance was a time of individualism, and nationalism does not foster this. The second reason is that although religion was important during the Renaissance, men have always fought and died and killed for their god or gods.

Every religion is guilty of this. This did not have its start during the Renaissance, and the religious bigotry of today cannot be proven to have been started during the Renaissance. For the most part, Jardine made a very compelling case. Our society today evolved out of the Renaissance.

We are the hereditary links between the people of that time and of this time. Without the changes taking place during the Renaissance, our society as we know it today could not have been allowed to occur and develop.