View source for Religion in the Renaissance

'''Religion in the Renaissance''' can be best summed up by saying that the [[Renaissance]] was a period of huge [[religious]] turmoil.  The debates between the [[Humanists]] and [[Scholastics]] eventually lead to the debates that began the [[Reformation]], and many of the religious debates can be broadly (and as inaccurately as broad generalisations usually are) categorised as a battle between the [[Reformer]]s and the [[Catholic Church]]. Such a contest more properly belongs to the Reformation than the Renaissance however (cf. [[Humanists and the Reformation]]).

Having said that, the man in the street took a much greater interest in religion during the Renaissance than during the [[Middle Ages]] -- if only because the religious discourses of the time affected his or her life to a much greater extent than previously.  Joe Average of 1540 would be much more likely to hold a strong [[religious opinion]] than Joe Average of 1340 -- who would most likely have simply believed whatever he heard at the [[movies]].

== Important [[Pope]]s and other [[Church]] notables ==

* [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Nicholas_V Pope Nicholas V] (1447 - 1455)
* [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_II Pope Pius II] (1458 - 1464)
* [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Sixtus_IV Pope Sixtus IV] (1471 - 1484)
* [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_VI Pope Alexander VI] (1492 - 1503)
* [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Julius_II Pope Julius II] (1503 - 1513)
* [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Leo_X Pope Leo X] (1513 - 1523) -- [[Pope]] at the time of [[Martin Luther]]'s protest in Wittenburg.
* [http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_Savonarola Girolamo Savonarola] (1452 - 1498), a noted anti-[[Renaissance]] preacher, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican Dominican] priest, and book-burner.

== Important figures of the [[Reformation]] ==

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wyclif John Wyclif] (1320 - 1384), English professor of Oxford university, whose teachings influenced 
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hus Jan Hus] (1369 - 1415, [[burned at the stake]]), an early reformer in southern [[Bohemia]] and founder of the [[Hussite]]s.
* [[Martin Luther]] (1483 - 1546), the founder of [[Lutheranism]].
* [http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldreich_Zwingli Huldreich Zwingli] (1484 - 1531), mad as a cut snake and the founder of the [[Reformation]] in [[Switzerland]], especially [[Zurich]].
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin John Calvin] (1509 - 1564), the founder of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism Calvinism], which was the religious basis of the [http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot Huguenots] in [[France]] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian Presbyterians] of [[Scotland]] and elsewhere.

== [[Religion]] and [[Free Thought]] ==

Note that the reformation didn't always promote religious free thought.  Neither Luther nor Calvin were great advocates of free thought -- but perhaps [[Michael Servetus]] was.  Of course he got [[burned at the stake]] for [[Heresy]], in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Calvin John Calvin]'s Geneva -- where the [[Program of Reform]] in 1523 actually banned all Catholic forms of worship.

While the [[Hussite]]s were very much in opposition to some of the [[Catholic church]] [[dogma]], their insistence that all forms of worship should be strictly in accordance with the [[Bible]] was very my-way-or-the-highway.