Research Proposal on "Forbidden Religion to Hegemon of the World"

Research Proposal 7 pages (2650 words) Sources: 6 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

forbidden religion to hegemon of the world's belief systems, Christianity came to define each aspect of the middle ages, from the spiritual side of life and death to economic matters and matters of state. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was the one and only spiritual center. Although the word "Catholic" was used by prominent Christians such as Saint Ignatius of Antioch in its original meaning -- it is derived from Middle English, Old French, and Latin words meaning unity -- before the religious sect was formed, Catholicism presented more than just a unified Christianity in the Middle Ages. In fact, Catholicism was the only acceptable sects were heretical ("Middle Ages Religion").

It was not until the advent of the renaissance that this changed. In the 1400s, power plays by the church, including the Great Schism, resulted in skepticism and dissent among the religion's followers. Even the unification of the papacy did not help. The renaissance had set in, and an emphasis on personal devotion, humanity, and learning set in. Thus, three philosophical beliefs -- humanism, scholasticism, and Catholicism -- rivaled against and complimented each other in the pursuit of enlightenment, spirituality, and understanding ("Renaissance").

The first of these competing and complementary philosophies is humanism. A belief that focused on the importance of the individual, humanism was focused on the understanding that "people are rational beings" ("Renaissance"). In the early years of the humanist movement, the new philosophy and Catholicism had few major rifts. In fact, Kreis suggests that "Almost everywhere, humanism began as a rather pious, timid, and conservative drift away from medieval Christianity." Given the tenants of Christianity, one can determine that such views may be complementary. Christ himself advocated for the individual salvation of each man and woman, stating that each must come to accept the religion and declare it to be true in order to attain salvation (Romans 10:9). As the movement progressed, however, it began to accept pagan tenants. Man began to replace God as supreme; an interest in the joys and pleasures of the world grew; and beauty was praised, as it was "believed to afford at least some glimpse into transcendental existence" (Kreis). This division between Christianity and humanism is what convinced Kreis to suggest that humanism "ended in bold independence of medieval tradition." As much as humanism and Christianity were incompatible, however, renaissance humanists walked a thin line between their professed allegiances to the Catholic Church and their true belief system. In fact, prominent Christians such as Petrarch and Erasmus embraced some intellectual aspects of the philosophy.

Indeed, intellectualism was an important part of humanism. The most important aspect of that intellectualism was the aspect of "recovery" (Kreis). Humanists were almost obsessed with recovering the works of ancient Greek and Roman intellectualism. These works were re-studied in addition to translated into Latin (Kreis). Probably the most recognizable contribution of humanism was the humanities, or the subjects of grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and ethics ("Renaissance"). The humanist movement, while it proposed a certain curriculum, was far from the other major philosophy at the time -- scholasticism. While both philosophies were concerned with learning or education they are in complete conflict. Contrary to humanisms more liberal subjects, adhearants to scholatisicm studied logic, science, and metaphysics. Adherents of scholasticism were aligned in quite a complimentary way with Catholicism and Christianity. Scholasticism trained students to become experts of a certain trade, including theology. Those who believed in this educational system believed this was the best and most proficient way to educate those who would eventually enter a certain vocation. Humanists, on the other hand, believed that education was to be more round and holistic, covering such topics as morality and the betterment of one's person. Thus, the three philosophical and spiritual frames of mind during the renaissance often complemented and conflicted with one another. While humanism and the Catholic Church were not always antithetical and were, especially to some church members, some times complementary, humanism and scholasticism, while both concerned with teaching and learning, were conflicting ideas. Furthermore, scholasticism often reinforced the philosophy of the church by training its clergy in the narrow occupation of theology. Humanism, too, however can have ties to those Christians who began to practice their religion in a personal way, drawing away from the church, because it advocated a moral and holistic education. Thus, while the Renaissance is traditionally seen as a time when the focus began to move away from the Catholic Church and toward secular education, two types of secular education intermingled with the Catholic Church and practitioners of private religion to create a unique mosaic of belief and education.

2. The Portuguese are commonly and appropriately credited as the originators of the Maritime Revolution in world commerce and imperialist expansion, which occurred circa 1400-1650 a.D. Under the sponsorship and authority of Prince Henry, the son of King John I (who was known to history as Prince Henry the Navigator), Portuguese merchants and sailors established a clear precedent of maritime exploration through the expansion of trade routes, establishment of far-flung colonial outposts, and extraction of valuable raw materials from exotic locales. With a guiding example of Portuguese exploration, several generations of European mariners would go on to even richer discoveries and profits in the years that followed.

The truly astonishing thing about all this is that it was Portugal, a relatively marginal European power, which inaugurated centuries of Western global dominance in resource markets and territorial control. Given that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks cut off direct western trade with the far east, it is surprising that the other great European seafaring powers were not active before the Portuguese, especially those more directly affected by the fall in profit, such as the Venetians or Genoese.

Part of the answer may lie with Prince Henry's motivations. Given that he received substantial backing from the Order of Christ, which carried on the traditions of the Knights Templar, he may have been influenced by their desire to see Christian powers in control of the Mediterranean, with access to wealth and resources needed to sustain campaigns against Islamic expansionism. In this regard, Henry concurred with such ambitions, having taken part in the seizure of the port of Ceuta in northern Morocco, dealing a blow to the Barbary pirates along the Moorish coast of Northwest Africa. But Henry saw that there were also other opportunities for Portuguese expansion, still very close to home. Both the Canary Islands and the Azores quickly fell under his eye, becoming Portuguese colonies in 1448 and 1430 respectively.

Thereafter, the focuses of Henry's maritime expeditions were concentrated on reaching the West African coast at a point south the Saharan desert, thereby circumventing the desert caravans of Muslim traders. Though not all expeditions succeeded, there was increased support for maritime exploration under King John II. In 1482, that monarch dispatched Diogo Cao and Bartolomeu Dias to explore Africa's Gold Coast and return with whatever could be found there, particularly gold deposits and African slaves. While Cao opened up trade with the African Kingdom of the Congo, charting 1500 miles of coastline and bringing in immense profits, Dias explored further south, attempting to find the southern extremity of Africa. Eventually Dias did in 1488, when he and his crew were blown off course by a storm, past the cape, which came to be named the Cape of Good Hope slightly later, making Dias the first European to reach that point and record it.

Not longer after this, Portuguese interests shifted. With the explorations by Christopher Columbus in the following decade, and the introduction of spices from the East Indies, which were used for food preservation, it became urgent to make contact with traders in India who had direct access to spice imports. When King John II died in 1495, King Manuel the Fortunate assumed the throne and directed that an expedition be sent by Vasco de Gama in 1497, which sailed around the cape of Good Hope eastward and then directly north to India, allowing access to Indian spice markets. De Gama established trade relations with the Indian Empire at Calicut, and by 1502, that region had become a Portuguese colony, firmly establishing the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean for the next three hundred years.

De Gama's expedition was all the more extraordinary because of the tremendous odds that stood against his success. Hostility from Arab rulers on the East African coast made reprovisioning his ships difficult, as did the reluctance of Indian merchants in accepting European goods in trade, which they deemed inferior to Arab wares. However, despite losing two ships and 126 men on the journey, De Gama returned not just with knowledge of the route to India, but a single shipload of spices, in high demand by European markets.

Over a decade later, and traveling further eastward, Portuguese explorers reached the Molucca Spice Islands in 1513. While the Spanish explorer Balboa caught sight of the Pacific that same year traveling… READ MORE

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