Was the Reformation Antipathetic to Renaissance Values

This essay assesses the extent to which the views expounded by Reformation reformers were consistent with Renaissance values. The reformers were driven by the following factors: the immorality and lapses of practice in the Catholic Church; the move back to the original scriptures in Hebrew and Greek as authorities; a world view based on faith and that used the printing press as a tool to spread their Protestant propaganda. The values of the Renaissance were based on humanist thought and reason, a move back to classical Greek and Latin texts and a worldview based on the development of the individual and the revival of antiquity.

The Renaissance was mainly driven by secular and human interests and was irreligious in some cases. This essay examines the following points of difference or tension between Reformation and Renaissance values (with the Reformation being the first in each pair noted): The People versus the Aristocracy; Anti-Catholic stance versus a neutral or pro-Catholic view; Religion versus the Classics; Iconoclasm versus patronage of the arts and finally Gothic versus Classical Architecture.

The Reformation was a response to, and against, the immorality and lapses in practice, such as the use of indulgences, of the Catholic Church. This further developed into a close look at a number of doctrinal issues by the reformers. As Laurence comments,

“Luther’s original criticism of indulgences in 1517 had developed by 1521 into an all-out assault upon the very foundations of authority in the Roman Catholic Church” (Laurence, 2000, p25).

Renaissance humanists benefited from the availability of affordable printed literature that helped to take knowledge out of the hands of the Catholic Church and paved the way for scientific, civil and secular advancement.

The term Renaissance itself describes a world view toward life which values earth more than heaven, human fame over immortality of the soul, the striving for success more than striving for justice, the individual over authoritarian institutions, and humanism over Christianity. The Renaissance saw the rise of humanism, a system of rational thought that placed greater importance on human rather than divine interests. It heralded a turn away from medieval scholasticism and a revival of interest in ancient Greek and Roman thought (Compact Oxford Dictionary, 2006). Reformation values being religious and God centered in nature were antithetical to those of the Renaissance.

An important feature of the German Reformation, in contrast to the Renaissance, was that it had appeal for a broad cross section of society, including the uneducated mass of the population (Laurence, 2000). The Reformation led to peasant uprisings and the production of charters to address perceived grievances such as ‘The Twelve Articles’ (Laurence, 2000). In The Twelve Articles Of the Peasants of Swabia (1525), we see the common people and peasantry using the Reformation movement as a vehicle to ask for things such as freedom from serfdom, the ability to hunt and fish in flowing water, the right to collect firewood, access to fair rents and the impartial treatment of felons. These requests are more social in nature than religious and were aimed at, and against, the aristocratic and land-owning classes (Lotzer, 2000).

As Laurence notes,

“The German Reformation, unlike the Renaissance, was not exclusively an urban or court-based phenomenon restricted to the ranks of an educated minority" (Laurence, 2000, p88).

Renaissance society based on the court based system was aristocratic and elitist Mateer, 2000) and was not concerned with the commoner or peasant. In fact Celtis in one of his speeches supports Renaissance based humanism with a call away from the common people saying,
“I exhort you to turn first to those studies that can render your minds gentle and cultured and call you away from the habits of the common crowd, so that you may dedicate yourselves to higher studies” (Celtis, 2000, p297).
In the same speech he also mentions his support for the emulation of Roman nobility and Greek invention and learning.

While the Reformation included the common people and peasantry, one of the major reformers, Dr Martin Luther was not on the side of the peasants and Muhlport in a letter to Stephen Roth mentioning Luther’s stand states,
“But I do not agree with Doctor Martin… that the need of the poor should be forgotten. If both sides concede something it would be pleasing to God … he has written the truth in condemning rebellion, but the poor have been greatly forgotten” (2000, p355).
The inclusion of the concerns and religious needs of the common classes was antithetical to aristocratic focused Renaissance values.
The religious reformers, such as the Lutherans and Calvinists, shared an abhorrence, “for the perceived corruptions of the unreformed Catholic church”(Elmer and Laurence, 2003, p28) compared to the more laid back attitude towards the Catholic Church taken during the Renaissance.

The Reformation brought about a marked reduction in the number of religious festivals displays and processions compared to the Italian Renaissance (Laurence, 2000). The sense of Renaissance occasion and reception was replaced by a Protestant austerity.
In contrast to the anti-Catholic stance taken by the reformers, Mateer talking of the Catholic Church says,

“Renaissance values were increasingly adopted by the clergy and nobility whose churches and palaces were transformed into visible monuments to cultural reform” (2000, p91).

Renaissance greats such as Cosimo de’Medici (1389-1464) were famous for the large amounts of money they poured into religious architectural projects. de’Medici provided financial backing for the Dominican friary of S.Marco and the parish church of S. Lorenzo in Milan (Mateer, 2000). Patronage by Renaissance personages such as Duke Ludovico Sforza (Duke, 1494-1500) for religious commissions for the Catholic Church included The Last Supper by Leonardo de Vinci (1452-1519).
The reformers, not surprisingly, had a religious agenda compared to the Renaissance respect for the secular classics of Roman and Greek antiquity.
The reformers were opposed to Pagan literature and philosophy (Laurence, 2000). They suppressed key elements of the Renaissance such as flamboyance, speculation, the loosening of dogma. Plumb in writing about the Reformation, states:

“They deplored paganism; repressed the licentiousness of the Romans, religious and secular; insisted on sacred subjects in art and clapped fig leaves on the statues of antiquity” (1964, p207).

The Renaissance valued the preservation and dissemination of classical learning opposed to the religious dogma of the Reformers.
The Reformers may have been antithetical to ancient and Renaissance thought because,
“Readers of ancient philosophy were exposed to non-Christian discussions of morality which opened up intellectual possibilities not formerly easily available to them”(Zaw and Kekewich, 2000, p160).

Contrary to the God centred Reformers who thought that only their scriptures contained the truth of human life, Celtis referring to the ancient philosophers, poets and orators, says, “they alone have prescribed for us the way to live well and happily”(Elmer, 20004, p18). Both parties were looking for the truth but the Renaissance value and approach was humanist and secular in nature and based on reason, not some “faith” or “belief”.
The reformers took the things they liked about humanism and the liberal arts and then put them in a container of belief that negated the search for the truth by proclaiming the Bible as the only source of truth. While Luther was supportive of the requirement for a humanist education he referred to the works of the ancient sophists and philosophers as the “devil’s dung” (Elmer, Webb and Wood, 2000, p306).

In writing of the humanists, Burckhardt notes their learning, their indifference to politics and their cosmopolitan worldliness. The humanists were ‘a crowd of the most miscellaneous type’, ‘a wholly new element in society’, who wanted to feel as the ancients felt (Burckhardt, 1990, p129). He eventually charges them with ‘malicious self-conceit’, ‘abominable profligacy’ and ‘irreligion’ (p177).
The reformers showed an anti-intellectual stance, compared to Renaissance values, in their insistence on the authority of their scriptures and the priesthood of all believers (Laurence, 2000).
While Martin Luther was aware of humanism, classical literature and ancient languages from his time at the Universities of Erfurt and Wittenberg, Laurence points out that,

“Whereas prior to Luther, humanism was perceived by men like Erasmus as an end in itself henceforth it was viewed by the proponents of reform as primarily a means to an end – the revelation of the divine will”(Laurence, 2000, p31).

The critical ability engendered by the Renaissance to search for the truth was diverted by the Reformation search for religious “truth” based on the books of the Bible and Church writings (Elmer 20004).
The arrival of the Reformation led to a degree of iconoclasm in contrast to Renaissance patronage of the arts. The periodic damage to Catholic religious art led to the forbidding of the destruction or disfiguring of objects in churches and cemeteries” (Whitlock, 2000). This iconoclasm compares to the Renaissance practice of patronage of the fitting of churches and monasteries with art works. Up to the late 16th centuries Catholic altarpieces were a major opportunity for artists to show their virtuosity. The subjects of these altarpieces were invariably reflective of Catholic belief and of practice (Laurence, Elmer and Webb, 2000). Religious reform led to simpler artistic representations with a collapse of the market for Renaissance style religious pictures in Protestant areas after the Reformation (Laurence et.al; 2000).

The emergence of a distinctive Renaissance art style can be attributed to the revival of humanist learning and classical ideals in the fifteenth century. There was an appreciation of perspectival space and the use of a balanced and clear composition with a concern for formal and expressive naturalism (Elmer, 2000).
The Renaissance was famous for its classical architecture inspired by the ancients whereas,

“The adoption of all’antica style art in Germany was initially piecemeal and involved varying degrees of classicizing rather than a faithful imitation of the form and subject matter of classical art" (Laurence, Mateer and Webb, 2000, p143).

Reformation architecture used individual Renaissance motifs as opposed to complete all’antica designs. There was little evidence of Italianate style sculpture. The result could be called Gothic hybrid a mix of Gothic art with the new trends from Italy.
Renaissance architects valued classical architecture and Filarete (c1400-69), a contemporary architect wrote a treatise on architecture in the vernacular Italian citing classical precedents from the Ancient Roman, Vitruvius.
There were obvious tensions between the values of the religious reformers and those of the Renaissance humanists (Elmer, 20004)
The Renaissance was a move towards secular thought and enlightenment. While the reformers had some interest in humanist education they had a different end in mind than the Renaissance humanists. The reformation was fundamentally a religious movement based on doctrine and while the reformers may have had an unshaken belief in the importance of their scriptures, they lost the value of philosophical thought, art and practice contained in the recovered classical literatures and artefacts valued by Renaissance thinkers.

There was a degree of consonance between Reformation and Renaissance values with reference to the value of an education in the humanities. However the reformers used a humanist education as a means for their own “spiritual” ends compared to the Renaissance valuation of a humanist education as an end in itself.
There were some Renaissance aspects seen in the Reformation especially related to the interest in the ancient languages and the use of the printing press but once again the ends in sight were different from those of the Renaissance.
The values of the religious reformers during the Reformation were to a high degree antithetical to Renaissance values.

References

Celtis, C. (2000). “Inaugural address to the University of Ingolstadt (1492)”. In Elmer, P; Webb, N and Wood, R. (eds)(2000). The Renaissance in Europe: An Anthology. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Clarke, G; Mateer, D; Elmer, P and Webb, N. (2000). “Artists at the Sforza Court” in Mateer, D. (ed)(2000). Book 2 Courts, Patrons and Poets. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.
Cole, A. (1995). Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the Italian Renaissance Courts. London: Laurence King Publishing Limited.

Elmer, P. (20001). ”Court culture in the Renaissance”. In Mateer, D. (ed)(2000). Book 2 Courts, Patrons and Poets. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Elmer, P. (20002). “Introduction”. In Kekewich, L.(ed)(2000). Book 1 The Impact of Humanism. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.
Elmer, P. (20003). “Inventing the Renaissance: Burckhardt as historian”. In Kekewich, L.(ed)(2000). Book 1 The Impact of Humanism. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Elmer, P.(ed) (20004). Book 3 Challenges to Authority. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Elmer, P and Laurence, A. (2003). “AC5 Side B Responses to Lutheran reform – Notes”. In Open University. (2003). AA305 Study Guide 3. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Elmer, P; Webb, N and Wood, R. (eds)(2000). The Renaissance in Europe: An Anthology. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.
Kekewich, L.(ed)(2000). Book 1 The Impact of Humanism. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Laurence, A. (2000). “Renaissance and Reform” and “The spread of reform”. In Elmer, P. (ed)(20004). Book 3 Challenges to Authority. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Laurence, A; Mateer, D and Webb, N. (2000). “The representation of reform”. In Elmer, P. (ed)(20004). Book 3 Challenges to Authority. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Lotzer, S. (2000). “The Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia (1525)”. In Elmer, P; Webb, N and Wood, R. (eds)(2000). The Renaissance in Europe: An Anthology. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Luther, M. (2000). “Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments (1525)”. In Elmer, P; Webb, N and Wood, R. (eds)(2000). The Renaissance in Europe: An Anthology. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Mateer, D. (ed)(2000). Book 2 Courts, Patrons and Poets. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Muhlpfort, H (2000). “Letter to Stephen Roth at Wittenberg (1525)”. In Elmer, P; Webb, N and Wood, R. (eds)(2000). The Renaissance in Europe: An Anthology. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.
Open University. (2003). AA305 Course Guide. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Open University. (2003). AA305 Study Guide 1. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Plumb, J.H. (1964). The Penguin Book of the Renaissance. Ringwood: Penguin Books.

Thomas, A. (2000). “Fifteenth-century Florence and court culture under the Medici”. In Mateer, D. (ed)(2000). Book 2 Courts, Patrons and Poets. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Welch, E; Wright, A and Mitchell, S. (2000). Representations of court life”. In Open University. (2003). AA305 Study Guide 2. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Whitlock, K (ed)(2000). The Renaissance in Europe: A Reader. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.

Zaw, S. K. and Kekewich, L. (2000). “The humanists and ancient philosophy”. In Kekewich, L.(ed)(2000). Book 1 The Impact of Humanism. London: Yale University Press in association with the Open University.