Renaissance - The Church

Simon, about the Church in Mid-evil/Renaissance times you said, “I also wonder why, after so long, ancient ideas of rhetoric were able to resurface during the Renaissance. To me, it seems as if the Middle Ages were "dark" because the Church, no doubt trying to look out for itself, tried so suppress so many resources people had for learning, not the least of which was rhetoric.”
I’d like to add a little bit of thought here, if I could.

When we studied the “Dark Ages” in a class I took before, we talked about how the main focus in Western Europe at this time was generally just surviving. Aside from the very wealthy, people lived in small villages and worked hard subsistance-farming to have enough to eat. I think that the Bizzell and Herzberg text does a good job of showing how life here focused on what the Church was doing. Even though this ethnocentric view may have lot out a lot of what was going on in other cultures, the fact that they did very much supports the fact of how much life was centered around the Church.

Basically, I’m just restating what we alrady know, but obviously the Church had a lot of control over people and what they were allowed to learn. But I think this ties in really well with how a discussion of how much things changed in the Renaissance.

In the Introduction to Renaissance Rhetoric, B&H say, “Scholasticism was commmitted to a version of Aristotelian empiricism that stressed the knowledge of external reality rather than emphasizing the mind’s power to reimaging and shape reality.” Basically, people had been told “All things come from God. Look at what God had done. Everything we have was given by God.” They de-emphasized the importance of what the human mind had or could come up with because, if everything was from God, what need was there to further the mind in other areas, it would lead to nothing.

It seems that during the Renaissance, however, that this view of thinking was kind of “turned inside out” and instead of suggesting that “God created this and that and that’s how it is…” people now had the option of thinking outside the box they’d been placed in by the Church. And with the rise of Humanism, people started to focus on their own value and capacities and not as much on the Church. Focus turned back on finding the truth and to the “good,” leading back to Cicero.

As Simon said, the church eventually did have to conform to these new Humanistic learning standards – broadening the scope of education to include training in classical rhetoric and focusing on individual talent (B&H 565) or it would have, do doubt crumbled.

It brings up and interesting question, though. Obviously many people did turn away from the Church; either to form new churches or just turned away completely. But I wonder if still others, upon being allowed to broaden their scope of education and allowing opposing viewpoints to come in may have actually noticed themselves believing more in the power of God and in the Church. I wonder if this sort of “test of faith” actually strengthened their loyalty.

KJ