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hi my name is Paul Sergeant welcome once
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again to AP Euro bit by bit in which I'm
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taking modern European history and
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bringing it down into small pieces so
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that you can better understand it
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today's question what was humanism let's
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take a look so to begin with humanism
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was an intellectual movement that's why
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there's an ism on the end those three
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letters signify a belief in something
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and throughout European history we we're
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overloaded with isms why well Europe is
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a land of ideas and action generally
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speaking ideas are formulated before
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actions are taken and that's going to be
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a constant theme throughout the Modern
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Age so humanism or Renaissance humanism
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as it's also referred to was the renewed
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belief in the value and power of the
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individual throughout the Middle Ages
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the general concept of man's place in
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the universe was one of obedience people
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were expected to live their lives to
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worship God and they were asked by the
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church to earn their way into Heaven by
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following the sacraments and through
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good works in the 14th century
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intellectuals began to question this
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purely Rel religious view of life on
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Earth they studied The Classical
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Languages of Greek and Latin in order to
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read the wisdom of writers from the
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ancient world when Constantinople fell
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to the Ottomans in 1453 many of those
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ancient texts and the scholars who kept
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them made their way to Italy which
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reintroduced a treasure Trove of
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writings to Western Europe so suddenly
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the ideas of ancient writers become
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available to a whole new audience
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ancient values such as civic virtue
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became subjects of conversation and as
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more people started reading these texts
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the demand for L education you know for
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schools run outside the realm of
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monastic communities and outside of the
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church well that increased wealthy
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families began to support the schools
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and send their children to the schools
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to learn Greek and Latin and gain access
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to ancient ideas the problem was that
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some of those ideas came into conflict
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with the teaching and doctrine of the
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Catholic
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Church humanism had at its core the
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belief in two things IND individualism
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and secularism that is a departure from
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religion however it's important to
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understand that humanists didn't really
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reject Catholicism and they didn't
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reject religion what they wanted to do
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is they wanted to take the ideas of the
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Ancients and use education to better
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understand the world while still
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retaining their Catholic beliefs now
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maybe what I said just doesn't make
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sense but if you bear with me I think
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it'll all kind of come together what we
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need to do now that we understand what
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humanism is is to take a look at four of
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the most influential humanist thinkers
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patriarch is generally regarded as the
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father of the Renaissance writing in the
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14th century he was the first guy who
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looked at the Middle Ages as a period of
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darkness and promoted the belief that
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medieval culture was ignorant of
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classical ideals he was totally wrong
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about this and every medieval scholar
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today can come up with a long list of
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reasons why he was wrong but pedar
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understood that new movements need to
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set themselves apart from the current
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Society so he might have overstated
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things a little bit he scoured the
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monasteries of Europe for ancient texts
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and promoted the study of classical
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Latin we're talking about the time of
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Julius Caesar that sort of uh period he
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also promoted the use of something
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called the vernacular those are the
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spoken languages throughout Europe in
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his case it was Italian uh he promoted
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these in writing instead of the medieval
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Latin that that monks and church
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Scholars were using at the time
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by the 15th century writers began
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identifying themselves as humanist
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Lorenzo Vala from Rome dedicated his
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adult life to use his humanist education
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to help the church he even tried to get
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the job of papal secretary but was
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unsuccessful so he set off around Europe
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intensely studying Greek and Latin
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finding every text he possibly could and
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he pushed the concept that classical
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Latin especially that of about the 200
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years
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surrounding uh the birth of Christ as
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being the purest most beautiful form of
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Latin in
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history now we all know that that
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languages change over time and he wanted
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to restore Latin to its rightful
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position over the
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vernacular now all his deep
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understanding of Latin and his
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development over time led to some
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trouble his studies brought to his
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attention a thing called the Donation of
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Constantine this is a document in which
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the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th
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Century gave vast amounts of land at the
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Catholic church now what Vala found was
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that the Latin used in the document
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didn't match the Latin being used during
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Constantine's time but it was actually a
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form of language being used around 400
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years later in other words he proved
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through linguistic analysis that the
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document was a fraud now that didn't
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make his beloved Catholic Church happy
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but ironically after many years of
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criticism he was named papal secretary
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in
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1447 proving that humanism had won over
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tradition and or Orthodoxy in the later
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15th century scholarly interest in the
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works of Plato surged and the major
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figure in promoting Plato was the
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Florentine from Florence Florentine
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writer marcelio ficino under the
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patronage of Koso Koso deedi ficino
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created and promoted the movement known
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as neop platonism Neo you may know
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means new so whenever you encounter
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movements whose name starts with
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Neo understand that means a Revival of
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an old idea but anyway so ficino's
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neoplatonism attempted to take Plato's
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ideas and join them with C
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Catholicism and it had two major
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components the world was organized
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hierarchically with plants at the bottom
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and God at the top man was in the middle
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and man represented the link between the
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material realm and and the spiritual
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realm all right second he had this
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theory of platonic love and it held that
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just as all people are connected in
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their Humanity through love so too all
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parts of the universe are connected
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through love okay so that's three
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writers just one more to go by the late
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15th century humanism had been
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developing for almost 100 years it was
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then that Pico deir andola wrote one of
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the most famous humanist pieces of all
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time it was titled oration on the
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Dignity of man and in it Mir andola
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combined nuggets of what he called
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universal truth from many writers to
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come up with God's message to all of
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mankind he believed that God had created
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unlimited potential in people or as he
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put it to him it is granted to have
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whatever he chooses to be whatever he
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Wills in other words God gave us all the
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potential to become whatever we want
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mirandola had successfully achieved the
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goals of humanism he had reconciled the
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Pagan ideas of ancient writers with the
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revelations of Catholicism but that
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didn't mean that humanism was finished
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it would spread to Northern Europe and
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find new Scholars with new ideas more on
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that another time so to review humanism
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was the Revival of interest in the
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classical ideals of Greece and Rome and
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humanists used their education to
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translate The Works of classical writers
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and use them to better understand the
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universe and man's place in it human
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humanism gave us the foundation for most
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of modern Western thought and so on that
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note we've come to the end of the video
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I hope that you've understood the
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concept of Renaissance humanism and
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please subscribe so you get notified
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whenever I post new videos thanks for
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watching apuro bit by bit my name is
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Paul Sergent thanks for watching
