Culture, Science, and Technology, 1450-1750 Flashcards
~Printing press
● A feasible, movable-type version
● Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1430s
● Exerted a steadily growing influence over hte way information was disseminated over great distances and to large audiences
~Gunpowder weaponry
● Originated in China during the 1100s and spread to the Middle East and Europe during the 1200s and 1300s
● It was not until the 1400s and afterward that it fundamentally changed warfare
● Gunpowder empires experienced gunpowder revolution
~Gunpowder revolution
● States learned to deploy cannon and hand-held weapons like muskets in sieges and abttles
● To build new fortresses better able than medieval castles to withstand cannon attacks
● (In the case of Europe) to create oceangoing ships capable of traveling vast distances and carrying gunpowder weapons
~Marine and navigational technology
● Combined European technology and others that had arrived from China via the Middle East
● Launch the European age of exploration
~Astrolabe
● Measured latitude
~Compass
● Determining direction
~Better maps
● Came from better knowledge of cartography and astronomy
● More precise understanding of the stars’ movements further advanced their navigational skills
~Sailing ships
● Europeans learned to build sturdy and maneuverable sailing ships that could travel far out intot he open ocean
● These vessels had deeper keels for greater stability
● Sternpost rudders (a highly effective steering system first used in China)
● Lateen sails on several masts with complex systems of rigging
- Unlike square sials on a single mast, these allowed boats to sail in the direction they needed to even in unfavorable winds
~Caravel
● First ship that enabled true oceanic exploration
● Largely invented by the Portuguese, who combined square sails with lateen sails for better control over direction
~Galleon/Carrack
● Larger ships then caravel
● Soon followed caravel
● All of them were used for purposes of trade and war alike
~Intellectual orthodoxy
● Popular in the Middle Ages
● A fixed set of ideas taken from certain ancient Greek and Roman thinkers were combined with Catholic doctrine
● Scholars were moving away from this
~Nicolaus Copernicus
● Polish astronomer
● Provided mathematical proof for the heliocentric theory
● It took more than another century after Copernicus published his findings for hte helicentric theory to be accepted as fact htroughout Europe
~Heliocentric theory
● Earth and other planets revolve around the sun
● Ran counter to the standard wisdom
~Geocentric theory
● Earth sat at the center of the universe
● Handed down by the Greek scientist Ptolemy, it found favor with religious authorities in Europe, especially the Catholic papacy
- It placed human beings–God’s greatest creation, in the Christian view–at the heart of all existence
~Scientific Revolution
● Pace of scientific discovery accelerated during the 1600s and early 1700s
~Scientific method
● Early in the 1600s, thinkers such as Rene Descartes of France and Roger Bacon of England laid the groundwork for formal logic and the modern scientific method, in which observation and experimentation are used to prove theoretical hypothese
● This revived the mode of scientific thinkin that had arisen among the ancient Greeks, but it was more systematic and rigorous
Galileo
● Italian physicist who confirmed and popularized Copernicus’s theories (along with German astronomer Johannes Kepler)
● He was tried by the Inquisition and forced to reject his own scientific conclusions in public
~Isaac Newton
● 1642-1727 of England
● Famous for the laws of motion, his thoughts on the concept of gravity, and as one of the two methematicians who invented the system of calculus
● He took the discoveries of his day and tied them together into a single system of thought–Newtonian physics–backed up by mathematic proof– 1687
- Not until Einstein’s thoery of relativity in the early 1900s would his fundamental principles be seriously challenged or altered
~Theravada/Hinayana
● Schools of thought
● Emphasized simplicity and meditation
● Were more popular in South Asia
~Mahayana
● Predominated in East Asia
● Put more of a premium on rituals, deities, and concepts of an afterlife
● Approaches like Zen/Ch’an differed greatly from sects like Pure Land
Sufism
● Mystical strain within Islam
● Continued to flourish after taking root between the 900s and the 1300s
● Emphasizing communion with Allah over doctrinal strictness
~Sunni-Shiite split
● Had divided most Muslims from the minority who viewed Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali, not hte Umayyad caliphs, as Mohammed’s rightful sucessor
● Ongoing conflict between the Ottoman Empire (Sunni) and Safavid Persia (Shiites)
~Shiism/Twelver Shiism
● Differed even more from Sunni
● Form a majority in nwhat is now Iran and is a sizable minority in many other places
● Belive that correct interpretations of Islamic doctrine and Sharia law flow from the teachings of 12 religious authorities called imams
~Imams
● 12 religious authorities aht Shiites believe the interpretations of Islamic doctrine came from
● Include Ali and the 11 leaders who followed him until the mid-800s
● Considered have entered a hidden spiritual state by Shiites (someday he is supposed to return as a messiah figure known as the Mahdi)
~Protestant Reformation
● Affected not just matters of faith, but culture, politics and the way Europeans spread Christianity to other parts of the world
● Printing press played a key roe in spreading new religious ideas across Europe
~Eastern Orthodoxy
● Prevailed in and around Bzantium
● During the 1300s and 1400s, Byzantium’s graual weakening, followed by its destruction in 1453, left Orthodoxy politically weakened and confined mainly to Europe’s Slavic and Balkan periphery
~Roman Catholicism
● Dominated the larger central and western parts of hte continent prior to the 1500s
● During the 1300s and 1400s, the power and prestige of the papacy waned, thanks first to its forced transfer from Rome to the French city of Avignon for most of hte 1300s, and hten to several decades of confusing and painful rivalry between two papacies, each of which claimed allegiance from all Catholics
● Even after the restoration of a single pope to Rome, growing corruption within the Catholic hierarchy worsened hte situation
● Until the early 1500s, Catholic authorieis were able to crush any opposition
~Martin Luther
● German monk who protested the sale of indulgences in his hometown in 1517
● Wrote Ninety-Five Theses
● He was excommunicated and threatened with arrest and death when he refused the pope’s order to retract his criticism
● Founded Lutheranism
~Ninety-Five Theses
● Luther launched a general attack against church abuses and certain parts of Catholic doctrine
~Lutheranism
● The first of Europe’s major Protestant denominations
● Founded in the 1520s
~John Calvin
● French scholar who established a theocratic community in the Swiss city of Geneva and preached an even stricter form of Protestantism–Calvinist
~Calvinism
● Causght on in France (known as the Huguenots, an oppressed minority)
● Dutch Republic (the Reformed Church)
● Parts of England (the Puritans)
● Scotland (the Presbyterians)
● Predestination–arguing that whether a person wouldbe saved or not was known to God from the beginning of time
~Church of ENgland/Anglican Church
● Henry VIII formed it
● Many beliefs and practices separated Protestants from Catholics
● THe former favored institutional simplicity, incontrast tot he bureaucracy of the Catholic Church, and sacraments were less important to them as well
~Protestants
● Did not venerate hte saints or the Virgin Mary the way Catholics did
● Allowed thier clergy to marry
● Salvation by grace
● Conducted services in their own languages (as opposed to Latin)
● Protestants were encouraged to read scripture for themselves
- Translation of the Bible into numerous languages, and made education and literacy a particular priority among many Protestant populations
~Salvation by grace
● The belief that only God’s forgiveness–not good works, observance of rituals or the power of the pope–could bring a worshipper to heaven
~Catholic Counter-Reformation
● In response to the Protestant Reformation
● Eliminated the worst of its corruption
● Reaffirmed the authority of the pope, gave new powers to the Holy Inquisition and created an Index of Forbidden Books that remained in place until the 1960s
~Religious wars
● Europe suffered a series of religious wars between the 1520s and the 1640s, as Catholic monarchs tried in vain to stem, and even reverse, the spread of Protestantism
~Missionary activity
● Spread certain faiths over wide distances
● Throughout Asia, this was a time of especially active proselytization of Buddhism and other religious extended their reach in this manner as well
~Global spread of Christianity
● Went hand-in-hand with Europe’s campaign of worldwide exploration and colonization, starting int he late 1400s and continuing throughout the rest of this period
● Won a surprising number of converts in Asia, even though in some cases, political leaders reacted to the new religion with hostility, either immediately or eventually
● Christianity was imported to Northa nd South America, first by the Catholic Spanish and Portuguess, then also by French Catholics and Protestant English and Dutch
~Francis Xavier
● Jesuit who brought Christianity to both South and East Asia
~Catholicization of Latin America
● Remains as a particular testament to the power of Christianity’s presence
~Syncretic religions
● Faiths that emerged from the blending of two or more religions’ traditions
● Many arose from Europe’s colonization of the New World, as well as the forcible transfer of African slaves there
~Vodun/Voodoo
● Dveloped among African-descended populations thorughout the Caribbean and hte Gulf of Mexico, duee to the mixing of animistic spirit worship from West Africa not just with animistic practices native to the Americas, but also with elements drawn from Christianity
● Example of syncretic religions