The Renaissance, and Reformation
Renaissance Rulers
- Henry VII ruled (1489-1509)
- Henry VIII ruled (1509-1547)
- Edward VI ruled (1547-1553
- Mary ruled (1553-1558)
- Elizebeth I ruled (1558-1603)
Memorable Battles
- The Hundred Year War
- The War of Roses
- War of Religion
- The Valois-Hapsburg War
- The Eighty Years War
- The Thirty Years War
- The English Civil War
- The Anglo-Dutch War
- The War of the League of Augsburg
- The Great Northern War
- The War of Spanish Succession
- The Jacobite Wars
Fun Facts
- Italy was the powerhouse of the Renaissance.
- At that time it was divided into independent states, where wealthy rulers offered patronage to great artists. The Renaissance also spread through southern France and Spain, and influenced northern Europe.
- The Renaissance is one of the most interesting periods of European history.
- Some historians reject the concept of the Renaissance altogether.
- The approach is that the Renaissance began in Italy about 1350 and in the rest of Europe after 1450 and that it lasted until about 1620.
- The term "Renaissance" comes from the Renaissance Era.
Reformation Rulers
- Frederick III (1440-1493)
- Maximilian I (1493-1519)
- Charles V (1519-56)
- Marten Luther
- Huldreich Zwingle
Memorable Battles
- The German Peasants' War (1524–1525)
- The battle of Kappel in Switzerland (1531)
- The Schmalkaldic War (1546–1547) in the Holy Roman Empire
- The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) in the Low Countries
- The French Wars of Religion (1562–1598)
- The Thirty Years War (1618–1648), affecting the Holy Roman Empire including Habsburg Austria and Bohemia, France, Denmark and Sweden
- The Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1651), affecting England, Scotland and Irelan
- Scottish Reformation and Civil Wars
- English Reformation and Civil War
- Irish Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
Fun Facts
- The Reformation was promoted by a new technology, the printing press. Luther's supporters published countless flyers and pamphlets with his writings.
- Luther's salary was paid in part by income derived from tourists who came to see his employer's extensive collection of relics. Frederick " the Wise" had over 16,000 relics, most of which were fake and incredibly superstitious.
- Frederick was raised up by God to protect him, without him Luther would have been destroyed by the church and pope early on. Frederick the Wise was just far enough from Rome, strong enough, and smart enough to keep Luther alive.
- Luther may have been motivated to post his theses by Halloween. The church replaced pagan Halloween with All Saints' Day, which was a huge time for people to come and venerate the saints and the collection of relics.
- Columbus discovered America only 9 years after Luther's birth.
- Jan Hus, often called the Morningstar of the Reformation, gave basically the same message as Luther 100 years earlier in Prague. He was burnt at the stake by the church for heresy.
- The Reformation only succeeded in countries which were never controlled by the Roman empire. Ex-Roman countries stayed with Catholicism, which was also tied in with a political commitment to Rome.
- A century after the Reformation, the new Protestant Reformation countries became more prosperous and prominent than the Catholic countries, due to the teachings of the Reformation.