Posted: March 8th, 2016

Can you link change to the technology itself or were there other reasons for changes in communications?

Please compose two essays drawn from the following list. Each essay should be between 500 and 750 words (2-3 pages in length, typed and double-spaced). Please submit the essays under the Assignments tab by Friday, March

1. Her Majesty is most interested in the printing press, and wonders if it has truly been revolutionary. In what ways, if any, did the nature, forms and content of communications change as a consequence of printing? Were there areas of continuity despite the new technology? Can you link change to the technology itself or were there other reasons for changes in communications? You might also discuss ways in which the technology of the printing press related to other technologies.

2. Which movement had the greater impact on early modern Europe, the
Renaissance or the Reformation? What were the most important changes coming from these movements, and which if either do you think was the more
fundamental break with the past? Or do you think the continuities were greater and that the changes associated with these movements have been exaggerated? Define both movements and be as specific as possible. Try to think about which segments of society were most affected by change (and which were not).

3. Would there have been a Reformation without the Renaissance? Could we have had a Luther without the likes of Petrarch and other humanists? What did the reform movements owe to earlier intellectual movements and developments, especially the humanist movement? Think broadly about this question based on the notes in the lessons, the source readings and the textbook.

4. Why did the religious reform in the sixteenth century have such a great
impact? What differed about this movement from earlier movements of religious reform? Were the changes due more to the figure of Luther or the nature of politics and society in the sixteenth century? Can you connect these in some meaningful way?

5. Her Majesty would like to know to what extent the idea of the ‘three orders’ of society reflected the actual social order in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? The three orders are illustrated in the wood cut of the tree of orders—showing the clergy, the nobility and the peasantry—from lesson two. Discuss what the image of the three orders emphasizes about society (it is a way of imagining society). Then write about the ways in which this mirrors the social order and the ways in which it is misleading. What is missing from the idea of the three orders? Was society changing? Is that reflected in the image of the three orders? What is left out?