Simony
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
(Difference between revisions)
| Revision as of 21:56, 24 October 2009 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Revision as of 22:02, 24 October 2009 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) Next diff → |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | [[Copernicus]] and [[Galileo]]. In his 1991 survey of these developments, Charles Van Doren considers that the Copernican revolution really is the Galilean cartesian ([[René Descartes]]) revolution, on account of the nature of the courage and depth of change their work brought about. | + | '''Simony''' is the [[ecclesiastical]] crime of paying for [[holy office]]s or positions in the hierarchy of a church, named after [[Simon Magus]], who appears in the [[Acts of the Apostles]] 8:18-24. Simon Magus offers the disciples of [[Jesus]], [[Saint Peter|Peter]] and [[John the Apostle|John]] payment so that anyone he would place his hands on would receive the power of the [[Holy Spirit]]. |
| - | + | ||
| - | The new scientific method led to great contributions in the fields of [[astronomy]], [[physics]], [[biology]], and [[anatomy]]. With the publication of [[Vesalius]]'s ''[[De humani corporis fabrica]]'', a new confidence was placed in the role of [[dissection]], observation, and a [[Mechanical philosophy|mechanistic]] view of anatomy. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ===Religion=== | + | |
| - | The new ideals of humanism, although more secular in some aspects, developed against a [[Christian]] backdrop, especially in the [[Northern Renaissance]]. Indeed, much (if not most) of the new art was commissioned by or in dedication to the [[Roman Catholic Church|Church]]. However, the Renaissance had a profound effect on contemporary [[theology]], particularly in the way people perceived the relationship between man and God. Many of the period's foremost theologians were followers of the humanist method, including [[Erasmus]], [[Zwingli]], [[Thomas More]], [[Martin Luther]], and [[John Calvin]]. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | The Renaissance began in times of religious turmoil. The late [[Middle Ages]] saw a period of political intrigue surrounding the [[Papacy]], culminating in the [[Western Schism]], in which three men simultaneously claimed to be true [[Bishop]] of [[diocese of Rome|Rome]]. While the schism was resolved by the [[Council of Constance]] (1414), the 15th century saw a resulting reform movement know as [[Conciliarism]], which sought to limit the pope's power. Although the papacy eventually emerged supreme in ecclesiastical matters by the [[Fifth Council of the Lateran]] (1511), it was dogged by continued accusations of corruption, most famously in the person of [[Pope Alexander VI]], who was accused variously of [[simony]], [[nepotism]] and fathering four [[illegitimate]] children whilst Pope, whom he married off to gain more power. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Churchmen such as Erasmus and Luther proposed reform to the Church, often based on humanist [[textual criticism]] of the [[New Testament]]. Indeed, it was Luther who in October 1517 published the [[95 Theses]], challenging papal authority and criticizing its perceived corruption, particularly with regard to its sale of [[indulgences]]. The 95 Theses led to the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]], a break with the Roman Catholic Church that previously claimed hegemony in [[Western Europe]]. Humanism and the Renaissance therefore played a direct role in sparking the Reformation, as well as in many other contemporaneous religious debates and conflicts. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ===Self-awareness=== | + | |
| - | By the 15th century, writers, artists and architects in Italy were well aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using phrases like ''modi antichi'' (in the antique manner) or ''alle romana et alla antica'' (in the manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe their work. The term ''la rinascita'' first appeared, however, in its broad sense in [[Giorgio Vasari]]'s ''[[Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani]]'' (The Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568). Vasari divides the age into three phases: the first phase contains [[Cimabue]], [[Giotto]], and [[Arnolfo di Cambio]]; the second phase contains [[Masaccio]], [[Brunelleschi]], and [[Donatello]]; the third centers on [[Leonardo da Vinci]] and culminates with [[Michelangelo]]. It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study and imitate nature. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ==Spread== | + | |
| - | :''[[Spread of the Renaissance]]'' | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | In the 15th century, the Renaissance spread with great speed from its birthplace in Florence, first to the rest of Italy, and soon to the rest of Europe. The invention of the [[printing press]] allowed the rapid transmission of these new ideas. As it spread, its ideas diversified and changed, being adapted to local culture. In the 20th century, scholars began to break the Renaissance into regional and national movements. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ==Historiography== | + | |
| - | ===Conception=== | + | |
| - | The term was first used retrospectively by the Italian [[artist]] and [[critic]] [[Giorgio Vasari]] (1511–1574) in his book ''The Lives of the Artists'' (published 1550). In the book Vasari was attempting to define what he described as a break with the barbarities of [[gothic art]]: the arts had fallen into decay with the collapse of the [[Roman Empire]] and only the [[Tuscana|Tuscan]] artists, beginning with [[Cimabue]] (1240–1301) and [[Giotto]] (1267–1337) began to reverse this decline in the arts. According to Vasari, antique art was central to the rebirth of Italian art. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | However, it was not until the nineteenth century that the [[French language|French]] word ''Renaissance'' achieved popularity in describing the cultural movement that began in the late-13th century. The Renaissance was first defined by French [[historian]] [[Jules Michelet]] (1798–1874), in his 1855 work, ''Histoire de France''. For Michelet, the Renaissance was more a development in science than in art and culture. He asserted that it spanned the period from [[Christopher Columbus|Columbus]] to [[Copernicus]] to [[Galileo]]; that is, from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the seventeenth century. Moreover, Michelet distinguished between what he called, "the bizarre and monstrous" quality of the Middle Ages and the [[democracy|democratic]] values that he, as a vocal [[Republicanism|Republican]], chose to see in its character. A French nationalist, Michelet also sought to claim the Renaissance as a French movement. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | The [[Switzerland|Swiss]] historian [[Jacob Burckhardt]] (1818–1897) in his ''Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien'' (1860), by contrast, defined the Renaissance as the period between [[Giotto]] and [[Michelangelo]] in Italy, that is, the 14th to mid-16th centuries. He saw in the Renaissance the emergence of the modern spirit of [[individualism|individuality]], which had been stifled in the [[Middle Ages]]. His book was widely read and was influential in the development of the modern interpretation of the [[Italian Renaissance]]. However, Buckhardt has been accused of setting forth a linear [[Whig history|Whiggish]] view of history in seeing the Renaissance as the origin of the modern world. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | More recently, historians have been much less keen to define the Renaissance as a historical age, or even a coherent cultural movement. As Randolph Starn has put it, | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | :"Rather than a period with definitive beginnings and endings and consistent content in between, the Renaissance can be (and occasionally has been) seen as a movement of practices and ideas to which specific groups and identifiable persons variously responded in different times and places. It would be in this sense a network of diverse, sometimes converging, sometimes conflicting cultures, not a single, time-bound culture." | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | ===For better or for worse?=== | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Much of the debate around the Renaissance has centered around whether the Renaissance truly was an "improvement" on the culture of the Middle Ages. Both Michelet and Burckhardt were keen to describe the progress made in the Renaissance towards the "[[modern age]]". Burckhardt likened the change to a veil being removed from man's eyes, allowing him to see clearly. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | :"In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which was turned within as that which was turned without – lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues." | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | On the other hand, many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors popularly associated with the "medieval" period – poverty, warfare, religious and political persecution, for example – seem to have worsened in this era which saw the rise of [[Niccolò Machiavelli|Machiavelli]], the [[French Wars of Religion|Wars of Religion]], the corrupt [[Borgia]] Popes, and the intensified [[witch-hunt]]s of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the Renaissance did not view it as the "[[golden age]]" imagined by certain 19th-century authors, but were concerned by these social maladies. Significantly, though, the artists, writers, and patrons involved in the cultural movements in question believed they were living in a new era that was a clean break from the Middle Ages. Some [[Historical materialism|Marxist historians]] prefer to describe the Renaissance in material terms, holding the view that the changes in art, literature, and philosophy were part of a general economic trend away from [[feudalism]] towards [[capitalism]], resulting in a [[bourgeois]] class with leisure time to devote to the arts. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | [[Johan Huizinga]] (1872–1945) acknowledged the existence of the Renaissance but questioned whether it was a positive change. In his book ''The Waning of the Middle Ages'', he argued that the Renaissance was a period of decline from the [[High Middle Ages]], destroying much that was important. The [[Latin|Latin language]], for instance, had evolved greatly from the classical period and was still a living language used in the church and elsewhere. The Renaissance obsession with classical purity halted its further evolution and saw Latin revert to its classical form. Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of deep [[economic recession]]. Meanwhile [[George Sarton]] and [[Lynn Thorndike]] have both argued that [[Science|scientific]] progress was perhaps less original than has traditionally been supposed. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Some historians have begun to consider the word ''Renaissance'' to be unnecessarily loaded, implying an unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly more primitive "[[Dark Ages]]" (Middle Ages). Many historians now prefer to use the term "[[Early Modern Europe|Early Modern]]" for this period, a more neutral designation that highlights the period as a transitional one between the Middle Ages and the modern era. Others such as [[Roger Osborne]] have come to consider the Italian Renaissance as a repository of the myths and ideals of western history in general, and instead of rebirth of ancient ideas as a period of great innovation | + | |
| - | ==Other Renaissances== | + | |
| - | The term ''Renaissance'' has also been used to define time periods outside of the 15th and 16th centuries. [[Charles H. Haskins]] (1870–1937), for example, made a case for a [[Renaissance of the 12th century]]. Other historians have argued for a [[Carolingian Renaissance]] in the 8th and 9th centuries, and still later for an [[Ottonian Renaissance]] in the 10th century. Other periods of cultural rebirth have also been termed "renaissances", such as the [[Bengal Renaissance]] or the [[Harlem Renaissance]]. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | == See also == | + | |
| - | *''[[Rabelais and His World]]'' | + | |
| - | *[[High Renaissance]] | + | |
| - | *[[Northern Renaissance]] | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | * [[Weser Renaissance]] | + | |
| - | * [[Gilded woodcarving]] | + | |
| - | * [[List of Renaissance figures]] | + | |
| - | * [[List of Renaissance structures]] | + | |
| - | * [[Medical Renaissance]] | + | |
| - | * [[Scientific Revolution]] | + | |
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Revision as of 22:02, 24 October 2009
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Simony is the ecclesiastical crime of paying for holy offices or positions in the hierarchy of a church, named after Simon Magus, who appears in the Acts of the Apostles 8:18-24. Simon Magus offers the disciples of Jesus, Peter and John payment so that anyone he would place his hands on would receive the power of the Holy Spirit.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Simony" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
