Unit 3 AP European History Review: Key Concepts Explained

The Renaissance, meaning 'rebirth', was a period of cultural and intellectual revival that began in Italy around 1450.It originated in the wealthy city-states of Italy, where merchants and rulers sponsored artists and thinkers.Florence, Venice, and Rome became the centers of this cultural movement, producing many of the greatest artists and thinkers of the era.Renaissance thinking was characterized by humanism, which placed new emphasis on human capabilities and the study of classical texts.Humanists promoted education, secular learning, and a revival of Greek and Roman knowledge that had been lost during the Middle Ages.In art, Renaissance masters developed revolutionary techniques including linear perspective, realistic human forms, and anatomical accuracy.Important figures of this period included Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and the humanist scholar Erasmus.The Protestant Reformation began in 1517 when Martin Luther, a German monk, posted his 95 Theses challenging Catholic Church practices.Luther criticized the selling of indulgences and other corrupt practices. He argued that salvation came through faith alone, and that the Bible, not the Church, was the ultimate religious authority.Protestantism quickly spread throughout Europe, taking different forms in different regions.Lutheranism took hold in northern Germany and Scandinavia, while Calvinism spread to Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, and Scotland. In England, Henry the Eighth established the Anglican Church.The Catholic Church responded to the Protestant challenge with its own reform movement, known as the Counter-Reformation.The Council of Trent, which met from 1545 to 1563, was central to this effort. It reaffirmed Catholic doctrine while addressing internal corruption and clarifying Church teachings.The Church also underwent spiritual renewal through new religious orders, particularly the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, founded by Ignatius Loyola.Jesuits became leaders in education and missionary work, while new artistic styles like the Baroque were developed to inspire religious devotion and counter Protestant influence.Religious divisions led to nearly a century of warfare across Europe, as Catholic and Protestant powers struggled for dominance.Major conflicts included the French Wars of Religion, the Dutch Revolt against Spain, the English Civil War, and most devastatingly, the Thirty Years' War, which ravaged central Europe from 1618 to 1648.These conflicts finally ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which established important principles of state sovereignty and religious tolerance.The legacy of this period included a permanently divided Christianity, weakened papal authority, and the foundations of the modern European state system.The Age of Exploration saw European powers venture beyond their borders, establishing global networks of trade and colonization.The Columbian Exchange was a widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and Europe following Columbus's voyage.From the Old World to the New, Europeans brought horses, livestock, wheat, sugar, and unfortunately, devastating diseases like smallpox that decimated indigenous populations.From the Americas to Europe and Africa came potatoes, corn, tomatoes, tobacco, and vast quantities of silver and gold that transformed European economies.The massive influx of silver from mines like Potosí in present-day Bolivia caused a price revolution in Europe, fueling inflation and fundamentally transforming European economies.The Commercial Revolution represented a fundamental shift in European economic organization from the 16th through 18th centuries.Banking systems expanded during this period, with financial institutions developing new credit systems that facilitated long-distance trade across continents.Joint-stock companies emerged as powerful economic and political forces. The Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, became the world's first multinational corporation with the power to wage war, negotiate treaties, and establish colonies.Mercantilism became the dominant economic policy, where nations sought to maximize exports while minimizing imports, accumulating precious metals, and using colonies primarily to benefit the mother country.The Age of Exploration triggered a dramatic shift in economic power within Europe, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic seaboard nations.Mediterranean powers like the Italian city-states and the Ottoman Empire, which had dominated trade with Asia via traditional routes, began to decline in relative importance.Atlantic nations like Spain, Portugal, England, and the Netherlands rose to prominence, controlling lucrative trade routes to both the Americas and around Africa to Asia.Several key factors drove this shift, including control of New World resources, new direct trade routes to Asia, naval technological advances, and growing colonial empires.The Commercial Revolution also reshaped social hierarchies across Europe, creating new pathways to power and influence based on commercial wealth rather than land ownership.In the traditional feudal hierarchy, society was divided into three main orders: nobility, clergy, and peasants, with power determined primarily by land ownership and birth.As trade expanded and commercial wealth grew, merchant families gained unprecedented power and status, creating a more complex social structure with new opportunities for social mobility.This transformation led to the rise of powerful merchant and banking families, growth of urban centers, increased investment in art and education, and the emergence of early capitalism.After the devastating Thirty Years' War, which ended in 1648, Europe saw the development of competing models of state power.Absolutism, exemplified by Louis the Fourteenth's France, centralized power in the hands of the monarch.Louis the Fourteenth famously declared 'L'état, c'est moi' - I am the state, embodying the concept of absolute royal authority.Under absolutism, monarchs controlled nobility, established standing armies, and promoted national culture, all while claiming divine right to rule.In contrast, Constitutionalism developed in England through a series of dramatic events.The English Civil War, the execution of King Charles the First, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 all contributed to establishing limits on royal power.These events established parliamentary sovereignty, rule of law, and protected civil liberties - core principles of constitutionalism.The Dutch Republic offered a third model of governance with its republican, merchant-dominated government.These political developments coincided with the Scientific Revolution, where figures like Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton made groundbreaking discoveries.The Scientific Revolution challenged traditional authorities with empirical methods, laying the groundwork for Enlightenment thinking that would later challenge absolutist regimes.These competing models of governance and revolutionary scientific ideas would shape Europe's future, eventually leading to the Age of Enlightenment.