User talk:Anton
Hello Anton,
Please do not add "Anton notes:" to articles started by other users. Doing so suggests that the "notes" added are yours alone and can't be changed by other users (which goes against the wiki idea in the extreme). If you feel that what you write must be kept separate then put your comments on new pages (eg. Anton's views on Religion in the Renaissance, Anton's views on Popes, Anton's views on Universities, Anton's views on Italian wars, etc). Wiki articles are not ongoing discussions between users. The idea of a wiki is a set of community edited articles not a set of different users opinions stuck together. If you wish to discuss something in an article then please do so on the article's talk page.
I will begin to separate your opinions into new pages when I have time.
The wiki is not a soapbox.
Hey Anton,
If you don't think the core studies of the Humanists caused people to question papal authority then provide some concrete examples. Sure, Wyclif and his crew did so too, but then so did many others, and many of those were Humanists. I'll give you the point about Italy. Not sure I agree with you about John of Paris (again, provide reasons) or the Imperialist/Papacy thing -- why did the emperors remain Catholic?
Calvin may not have been a champion of free thought, but neither was John XXXIII if you're going to raise the subject of burning at the stake. Check your foot, I think you just shot it.
Perhaps we need pages on "the reformation from a papist point of view" and "the reformation from a humanist/calvinist/lutheran point of view". You can't just go on quoting Thomas More like he wrote the book on it.
Hey Tobin,
The reformation was a soapbox. As was the renaissance, to a certain extent. Although I'll give you the one about the talk pages. Anton's a scholastic, I'm a humanist. Deal with it.
(Actually, I'm a Jew, so this whole thing is really meta- to me, but I'm coping).
While we're at it, Anton.
When did the reformation start?
Wrong answer: 1517.
Another wrong answer: immediately after the renaissance ended.
Correct answer: about 1347. The same time as the renaissance started. If the Decameron wasn't a reformist document, then I don't know what is.
That's it from me for tonight, I'm going to bed.
Oh, and Tobin, keep up the good work but I think you still have to deal with the academics.
Del 00:25, 11 Nov 2003 (EST)
Ok, points taken. But I am very worried that a large number of articles will soon have: "personXYZ's notes:" added to them and the wiki will degenerate into a set of unchangeable personal snippets and will no longer be a community effort.
I understand the importance of accountability. I just feel that the mechanisms the wiki has in place to deal with it are sufficient and we don't need to go around maintaining a second set of edit records (though articles previously published elsewhere should, as you've pointed out, have this fact mentioned)
I also very much like your idea of writing the same article from multiple points of view (though we could do the same thing in one article under different headings) - Tobin
Del,
No bloody way in hell for the Decameron being a core document for the Reformation. I see 'The Reformation' as just one more round in the Church/State conflict that started with Otto III marching on Rome and replacing the Pope in the 800s, and continued with Henry IV, Freddie I, Freddie II, Boniface vs the French and so on.
The Wyclif movement was an early - and almost successful - attempt to decapitate the Church and put it under the complete control of the Crown ; it was the prototype for the State Protestantism adopted by England, Sweden, Denmark etc.
Erasmus-style critiques of church corruption had been around for a long time ; I'll dig up some medieval examples.
I'd propose John of Paris' 1302 'On Royal and Papal Power' as a core document, in that it provided the intellectual firepower for the idea of Church as seperate from State. It was written to support French claims against Boniface, in the period before the the Avignon Captivity.
For me, the Conciliar movement of the 14th C was probably the key - they proposed solving the problem of the 3 Popes by having them all resign, and sorting it out at a Church Council. To paraphrase another quote, this is when people saw Popes could be unmade other than at Rome.
As to the end of the Reformation, it hasnt quite ended yet, although with Vatican II all of what I see as the Big Issues of the Reform have been resolved (it's notable for those pro-Conciliarists that it was the Council of Trent that reformed multiple benefices, selling indulgences and so on - the rightful core objections of the Reformers).
By the way, have a look at John of Salisbury's stuff here
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salisbury-poli4.html
Reads rather 15th C, doesnt it ... and he was in the room when Thomas A'Beckett of Canterbury got whacked.
In the Metalogicus - his book on how to learn philosophy - he's also citing St Bernard on teaching students rheotric and poetry, and his letters quote Cicero, Ovid, Juvenal, Petronius and every other darn Classical author he can get his hands on (oh yeah, and he also had some Greek).
Unless you use Humanist to mean 'Scholar with an interest in Classical authors other than Aristotle', you need to adjust the time period :)
Anton
Anton,
Point taken re Otto III. I'm just not up on history that far back, unless it's much further back.
I disagree with you re the Decameron though. It may not have been the earliest reformation document, but it was one. I'll dig you out specific stories if you like.
Re: the scholastics page. Very funny. Well done.
Del,
Whining about corruption in the Church was a favorite habit of just about every writer.
Heck, I bet I can find letters from Popes complaining about abuses and corruption in the Church.
But that doesnt mean they want to destroy the Church and re-form it, which was what the Reformation was about.
Anton
