Essay - European History the Age of Reformation it is a Cliche...

European History

The Age of Reformation

It is a cliche that the pen is mightier than the sword - that ideas shape the course of human events to a far greater extent ***** the use of power. Many ideas have been d*****cussed about the ***** of ***** in Europe, not only those ***** religious thinkers such as Luther and Calvin, but also those of political thinkers (Machiavelli and Hobbes, for example), scientists, and commenta*****rs on their world such as More and Montaigne. Also, the careers and achievements ***** a good many wielders of power, not only kings ***** queens, but also Popes, ministers, ***** as Richelieu, and rebels such as Coligny and William ***** silent ***** been discussed by historians regarding this time period. Did the writers ***** thinkers of ***** age ***** Re*****mation have a greater impact on this period ***** the politicians?" The Age of Reformation, like most periods of reform, was influenced most heavily by the opinions and dialogues of the time.

There were actually several influences responsible for ***** Re*****mation Era. One is that Europeans were suddenly expanding all over the globe, due mainly to the economic activity of mercantilism (Hooker pp). The world for Europeans at ***** beginning of the fifteenth century, was small and contained, and while they ***** aware ***** ********** places such as China ***** southern Africa, they remained focused on ***** immediate world, Europe and the Mediterranean (Hooker pp). By the beginning of the 1600's, ***** had been all over the world and had settlements on every continent except Australia and Antarctica (Hooker pp). In fact, most ***** the coastline of the Americas ***** ***** ***** the major cities in eastern Africa were under ***** domination of Europeans (***** pp). The discovery of the ***** did not merely challenge the Europeans' ideas of world geography, it fundamentally changed their view of history as well (Hooker pp). Richard Hooker writers:

From the time ***** early Christianity all through Middle

*****s, Europeans thought of history ***** an ordered and rational affair. History was by ***** large understood as salvation history; the larger meaning of history ***** the ***** of humanity in a Christian sense. The mean*****g of all historical events could be determined by correlating those historical events to events or sayings in ***** New

Testament which served as a k*****d of decoder ring; ***** way of understanding human experience and ***** is called typology (Hooker pp).

When the ***** World w***** discovered, Europeans began ***** realize that ********** was an entirely different hum***** history on this new continent, ***** ***** ***** was it ***** from European *****, it ***** "unknown and unknowable" because ***** *****s ***** not decipher the wr*****ings they encountered (Hooker *****). Thus, the salvation model ***** history could no longer apply to human experience because a total history had existed outside ***** context of salvation history (Hooker pp). Therefore, Europeans began to think of history in new and different ways (Hooker pp).

Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the