14-16th century European history.

14-16th century European social development is characterized by the gradual disintegration of feudal society and the gradual rise of capitalism. With the great geographical discovery, Renaissance, religious reform and the rise of nation-states, Europe has entered a modern period. In politics, economy and culture, there are:

1, political aspect

In most parts of Europe, the authority of feudal society, serfdom and Roman Catholic church declined and eventually disappeared. This period also included the Protestant Reformation, the disastrous Thirty Years' War, European colonization of America and witch hunting in Europe.

2. Economic aspects

Capitalist economy began to sprout and develop from Genoa and other political bodies in northern Italy. Modern times have also witnessed the development and leading position of mercantilist economic theory.

3. Cultural aspects

Initiated the Renaissance Movement and the Religious Reform Movement, which lifted the spiritual shackles for the development of European capitalism. At the same time, the importance of science has risen and technological progress has advanced by leaps and bounds.

Extended data

The Renaissance

Renaissance refers to a European ideological and cultural movement that reflected the requirements of the emerging bourgeoisie from the14th century to the16th century.

The concept of "Renaissance" was used by Italian humanist writers and scholars in14-16th century. At that time, people thought that literature and art had been highly prosperous in the classical era of Greece and Rome, but declined and disappeared in the "dark age" of the Middle Ages, and it was not until the14th century that it was "reborn" and "revived", so it was called "Renaissance".

Renaissance first rose in Italian cities, then spread to western European countries, and reached its peak in the16th century, which brought a period of scientific and artistic revolution and opened the curtain of modern European history, and was regarded as the dividing line between the Middle Ages and the modern. Renaissance is one of the three major ideological liberation movements in modern western Europe (Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment).

1 1 century later, with the recovery and development of economy, the rise of cities and the improvement of living standards, people gradually changed their pessimistic attitude towards real life and began to pursue the pleasure of secular life, which is contrary to the Catholic concept. In Italy, where the urban economy was prosperous in the14th century, resistance to Catholic culture first appeared.

Italian citizens and secular intellectuals at that time, on the one hand, hated the theocratic status of Catholicism and its hypocritical asceticism, on the other hand, because there was no mature cultural system to replace Catholic culture, they expressed their cultural ideas by reviving ancient Greek and Roman culture. Therefore, the Renaissance emphasized that the new culture should learn from the classics, which was not a simple classical Renaissance, but actually a bourgeois anti-feudal new culture movement.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Renaissance