16th Century European History

There is a tendency to limit the late 15th to the mid 17th century reformation by the theological changes during this most exciting of periods but it was an unprecedented era of economic, dramatic, literary, architectural, social, mathematical and scientific change and marked the birth of modern political, jurisprudential and philosophical thinking. I suggest not limiting the Reformation to the 16th Century since in Europe it began with the Fall of Constantinople and ended with both Christian and Islamic reforms and the founding of the British Empire in the early 17th Century. It saw the origins of Republicanism in western Europe and the USA and if we carry the reforms on to the end of the 17thC, it would see the Bill of Rights and the birth of the two party political system. It would also see a massive growth in witch trials and one of the periods of greatest oppression of women despite also seeing three/four powerful queens of England; finally it would see the birth of he greatest trade in slaves and lay the foundations for the most oppressive and largest Empire in recorded history. Arguably it saw the birth of modern espionage and the first recorded act of terrorism. We tend to focus on European history but it was an equally exciting period in the Middle East with the growth of the Ottoman Empire and trade across the Persian Gulf into India and China, the silk route and the arrival of narcotics and poisons from the Far east (which would then see not only silk and chinnoiserie become fashionable but also make poisoning much easier and harder to trace - Henry Prince of Wales, Lord Essex, Princess Maria of England, several mistresses of Louis XIV and at least one Pope etc

If we take the period as far as 1640 we then see the Oxford Society born in secret, still going strong today, but which was the birthplace of the Royal Societies for Science in England and France and the hiding place for such men of science as Newton, Boyle or of architecture as Inigo Jones or of philosophy as Mill whilst staying with philosophy we would see the writings of Hobbes and Austen. It saw the first Shah of Persia, and the peaceful rule of Islam by the Sufi, Machiavelli in France and Italy, Columbus still journeying to the Carribean (and still thinking it was the east Indies), the writings of Erasmus followed by the theses of Martin Luther, the colonisation of India and China by Portugal then Britain, Michelangelo finishes the Sistine Chapel, the birth of an independent Sweden (rapidly to become the supreme military force in Europe), the defeat of the Aztecs, the fall of the Incas to small pox and Spanish invasion, Henry VIII divorces that saw the Christian church in England break with Rome (Henry had earlier fought for the papacy in the Italian wars), the naval victory of Barbarossa securing the Mediterranean for the Ottoman Empire, the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the introduction of the musket to Japan, the religious wars begin in France with some 12 towns declaring independence of the church including my own Calvanistic home of Vezelay, Humayan's campaign in India which marks the beginning of the reform of Islam as the peaceful Safayids and Sufi are gradually defeated by the Salafism of a group of Islamic tribes that would eventually become the House of Saud, the first artificial limb is mass-produced and the first simulation of a surgical operation is conducted, the scientific method of analysis and discovery is promulgated and adopted for the first time in Europe by Francis Bacon, the Peace of Augsburg gives every European leader the right to choose religion for country and subjects without interference by another country, Humayun's son, Muhammad Akhbar, becomes the 3rd Moghul emperor and enacts religious tolerance in India, supporting Islam, Christianity and Hinduism and not favouring any of them, life expectancy falls to below 40 with infant mortality as high as 50% by the mid 1550s, the Dutch War of Independence also called the Eighty Years War tears Europe apart and ultimately sees Holland and France emerge as the world's new super powers, marking the beginning of the decline of the Hapburgs of Portugal, Austria, Hungary and Spain and the end of Machiavelli's hopes of Italian unification, an English seaman tacks down the Solent and overnight revolutionalises naval tactics and ship design in England (under Henry VIII whom had just lost the Mary Rose when top heavy) and Holland. The Spanish and French consider tacking black magic and continued to build tall heavy ships which cannot manouevre in high winds - the Spanish Armada is sunk but the English then revert to their former naval tactics and lose their own fleet in the defeat of the English Armada leaving control of the High Seas to the French and Dutch for nearly one hundred years until the defeat of both in the first world war in the 18th C. The Council of Trent determines that tradition is co-equal to scripture in determining what is right and wrong. All of the reforms recommended by Calvin, Erasmus and Luther are adopted by the Catholic church within less than 20 years of their publication! The theological reformation was very short-lived BUT Europe would disintegrate into 80 years of religious war and witch hunts despite the Council of Trent. Concrete is rediscovered after 1000 years. The Moghul Emperor Akhbar completes his conquest of India and is pronounced as the Sufi perfect or universal man of his generation, a microcosm of the Universe. Musket and pike warfare sees Nobonuga conquer Japan (to be succeeded, after his assassination, by the great Hideyoshi whom invades Korea and China). The minute appears as a measurement of time for the first time whilst hours in a day are standardised from 16 to 24. Time as we currently know it was invented in the 16th C. The Gregorian calendar is introduced which instantly sees Europe divided between those parts still following the Julian calendar, those following the Gregorian and those in southern and eastern Europe following the Islamic. All European calendars would not be standardised upon the Gregorian until 1923 with those countries with an Islamic tradition also retaining the Islamic calendar. The Dutch use the first time bomb in the siege of Bremen then of Antwerp (invented by one of my ancestors during the siege which also saw Bremen captured by men hiding in coal boats, referred to as the modern day siege of Troy). Telesio's rejection of the metaphysics of Aristotle in favour of knowledge based on experience and experiment - wrongly defined as science. Birth of the microscope and first standardisation of fracturisation equipment. Galileo develops the thermometer in 1593 and later in 1632 advises a pupil on an experiment that leads to the discovery of air pressure and the barometer. Almost the last event of the 16th C was the chartering of the British East Indian Company, set up to compete in trade with the Dutch and which would see the start of the British Empire (the largest Empire in terms of size the world has ever seen) in 1612 with the opening of the trade outpost in Sarat

But the Reformation was made possible by the printing press of Caxton in the 15th C, the fall of the feudal system as professional farmers with draught horses outnumbered serfs with their oxen by 4:1 and several peasant revolts over pay followed by plagues that decimated the workforce in Europe created the environment for a paid workforce; the birth of industry, the guilds and the merchant classes particularly foundaries and ship building also saw gravitation from rural communities towards cities as weapons shifted from the 13th to 15th C rule of bow and arrow to cannons such as those used in 1450 to end the Hundred Years War and to the birth of the arquebus and musket, armour moved towards lightweight steel without heavy suits of chain underneath, the halberd saw infantry gain superiority over cavalry, ships were armed with cannon and the first bronze statues were commissioned by Maximillian

During the 16th C we see the fall of previously wealthy Empires and their stolen treasures become available across Europe and the far East but also the growth in slave trading following the capture and colonisation of lands in the Americas and the Far east whether it be Persia, or the Inca, Aztecs or the Moghul Empire, the fall of the Hapburg and rise of the Bourbons, Stuarts, Tudors, the new rulers of India, China and Japan. We see huge fortunes made from slave trading (trillions of Euros at today's money) all of which would translate into funding for arts, crafts and building programmes, imperial ambitions and warcraft. Shakespeare joined the Chancellors Players in 1596, Marlowe, Webster and Jonson would write in an unprecedented period of dramatisation over 21 years 1595 to 1616, Galileo began his works in 1610 confirming Copernicus view of the solar system from the early 16th C and being the foundation for Newton's and Kepler's works of the mid 17th C, the Dutch art school was born and would change post Raphaelite art, establishing modern artistic perspective, Italian art would see da Vanci and Raphael (both taught by my own ancestor Niccolo Renzi), and hundreds of other Italian artists but also see portraiture taken to new heights by Holbein

So when we talk of the Reformation era, it began when works previously hidden in the Byzantine libraries of the Eastern Church were uncovered, it accelerated when the printed word sped up the production and dissemination of the written word, it was fuelled by the analysis of Erasmus and Luther, it found is support in people such as William of Orange and Henry Tudor, it even won over the Papal church at the Council of Trent, it led to two vicious religious wars in Holland and France, religious persecution across Europe, and it saw developments in science, architecture, ship-building, warcraft, mathematics and philosophy that have stood the test of four centuries since ... but it cannot be seen outside of its foundations in the ate 15th C and its greatest impact in the early to mid 17thC in my opinion since (especially in England) events such as the first English speaking translation of the Bible, the Gunpowder plot, the Poisoners scandal in France and Italy, the English Civil War, the Thirty years War and even the Bill of Rights all had their origins in events in the 16th C.

Ooops meant to be a quick reply. I am so sorry