| | The earliest beginning of the Renaissance was '''the poet Dante''' Alighieri (A.D. 1265-1321), who is famous for writing ''Dante’s Inferno'' about Hell. Another beginning date for the Renaissance is the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, when gunpowder and the cannon became essential parts of warfare. This military defeat caused Greek (Byzantine) scholars to flee to Rome, bringing their scholarship with them. They also brought their hostility to the Roman Catholic Church, causing changes to the religious order in Europe. | | The earliest beginning of the Renaissance was '''the poet Dante''' Alighieri (A.D. 1265-1321), who is famous for writing ''Dante’s Inferno'' about Hell. Another beginning date for the Renaissance is the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, when gunpowder and the cannon became essential parts of warfare. This military defeat caused Greek (Byzantine) scholars to flee to Rome, bringing their scholarship with them. They also brought their hostility to the Roman Catholic Church, causing changes to the religious order in Europe. |
| − | By the 1400s there were numerous great artists, and also advances in the existing Gothic Art. '''By the year 1500 the High Renaissance was in full bloom'''. But additional internal splits in Christianity were just around the corner. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther founded Protestantism when he nailed 95 “Theses” or issues to the door of his Wittenberg Church in what is now Germany. A decade later, in 1529, the English King Henry VIII founded another Christian denomination for an entirely different reason: he wanted the pope to approve his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and when the pope refused, the king founded the Church of England and seized all the property of the Catholic Church in England. Other Protestant faiths also began in the 1500s, and the Catholic Church responded with an ambitious reform effort of its own, often called the "Counter-reformation". | + | By the 1400s there were numerous great artists, and also advances in the existing Gothic Art. '''By the year 1500 the High Renaissance was in full bloom'''. But additional internal splits in Christianity were just around the corner. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther founded Protestantism when he nailed 95 “Theses” or issues to the door of his Wittenberg Church in what is now Germany. A decade later, in 1529, the English King Henry VIII founded another Christian denomination for an entirely different reason: he wanted the pope to approve his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and when the pope refused, the king founded the Church of England and seized all the property of the Catholic Church in England. Other Protestant faiths also began in the 1500s, and the Catholic Church responded with an ambitious reform effort of its own, often called the "Counter-Reformation". |
| | But before we reach those events, let's first review the origin and development of the English language. English does not come from Sanskrit or Hebrew or Greek or Latin. The Roman empire never conquered Germany, and English developed from Germanic people who settled in England. | | But before we reach those events, let's first review the origin and development of the English language. English does not come from Sanskrit or Hebrew or Greek or Latin. The Roman empire never conquered Germany, and English developed from Germanic people who settled in England. |