The 17th Century

in this lecture we're looking at the 17th century as a whole pulling the lens back and trying to get a sense of all the complexity that goes on here in this century so that when we dive into specifics for the century we can have a real grasp of what's going on all around Europe into the new world and really the reason for this lecture is because too often we tend to compartmentalize things that need to be kept together we have maybe a sweep of the history of our mind how we go from one generation of things to the next we also have another compartment in our mind at times as two great names great figures great movements but we don't always put these together in my case the first time I realized this was when I was a new student to the subject of history I had in my mind two separate categories of the Reformation and the Renaissance this was how I was taught it when we were discussing the Renaissance it was art Michelangelo da Vinci Donatello and so on and it was this wonderful flowering of the arts and of letters in another space in my mind you might say I had the Reformation Lutheran and others and then one day I sat down and I started to sketch out a timeline of all the things that are happening in and around the Reformation and it was frankly eye opening to realize that Michelangelo in particular just to take one case actually lived and painted well beyond the Reformation which means that he was there painting and sculpting and doing all these things while Luther was up in Germany founding a Reformation movement and just taking it as a microcosm of the problem here when we look at the 17th century we don't always appreciate the fact there is so much upheaval so much change both in terms of culture and politics and the landscape of the world but also in terms of the intellectual world biblical studies and theology just to put it bluntly the 17th century begins with Elizabeth the first in the Shakespearean Age and it ends with the Salem witch trials Elizabeth dies in 1603 in the Salem witch trials or in the 1690s now for most of us those two worlds are significantly apart we don't see them as part of a continuum we don't notice all the complexities that lead from one to the next so in this lecture we're gonna be looking at the big picture what happens all throughout Europe and what are some of the names and the events in the turning points that historians always find so interesting in complex well we could begin with some of the good things that are invented or discovered here in the 17th century two of the most important ice cream and coffee you see a real flowering of trade meaning things from one part of Europe or one part of the world and therefore the inventions will discoveries from one part of the world begin to really intermesh with other cultures part of this is revolutions in technology related to travel part of this is the fact of the new world really expands in mingles together all kinds of cultures from Europe as a whole but if you just think about the eastern coast the colonies and then you think about the countries that land there they're by putting culture after culture side-by-side you begin to get a sense of this Scottish and English folks will land in certain parts of New England and suddenly be living right alongside German folks Scandinavian folks all kinds of things and so the 17th century in a manner of speaking is a real flowering of trade engagement and invention it's during the 17th century for example that Kepler and Galileo and a number of figures who will revolutionize the way we see the heavens began to do their writing and at times come into controversy with a Catholic Church Galileo in particular as you cared for though into the later part of the 17th century 1687 Isaac Newton the man whose theory of gravitation amongst other things came to define Center of how the scientific world engaged with the physical surrounding world around them now the history of science of course is always told as if it immediately was opposed to the church into a theology the story of Galileo is often a case in point he is put on trial and he is under fire for his scientific discoveries related to the solar system but what's going on here is not yet overtly hostile to either theology whether it be Catholic or Protestant just take Isaac Newton for example one of the more recent things that has been argued and pointed out is it Isaac Newton Believe It or Not wrote more pages on subjects related to theology in the Bible then he actually did on science and it has some strange views here and there he challenges some of the understanding of the Trinity and so on but would say it was a good theologian but the traditional idea is that it's in the 17th century that it all goes downhill really fast suddenly the church is on the fringe and this quote/unquote scientific revolution elbows out faith well that's on the horizon but it's not in play yet the 17th century is something of the high-water mark just as we saw with trade and other types of things related to food and beverage where you see science in theology and all kinds of these things mingling and co-mingling and coming together in theology and philosophy you have an equal amount of flowering and interaction in the world of theology you have the rise of what we call the confessional age as well as scholasticism Protestant scholasticism to be specific the confessional age is an age in which just about every denomination at some point where every branch of the Protestant faith is beginning to really come down and to crystallize its confessional views on things so in the reformed world you see things like the Senate of dort which fought against Arminianism and we're going to look at that in greater detail later you also see the rise of the Westminster Confession during the English Civil War but far the most extensive and elaborate confession from the Reformed world but there are others all this is shaped though by a real heady mixture of school sysm with protestant theology now we said when we're looking at Luther that not everyone who is scholastic is by default theologically suspect scholasticism is more of a method it's more like a robust version of systematic theology well this begins to really flower here now a lot of the names that are associated with other Lutheran scholasticism or reforms classicism etc or not names that we know a great deal of but one of the things that begins to happen to Protestant theology is it begins to move from a more humanist base of Education to again this scholastic base there has been a lot of fighting and infighting depending on the denomination or the historian involved as to whether not this is a good thing or a bad thing so take the one issue we've looked at once or twice the dreaded question of Calvin and Calvinism will ask classicism unfolds and as it begins to develop you see reformed folks discussing things in a new way and with a new depth and with a new focus on clarity in scholastic rigor to a point that Calvin as a humanist is not always willing to go another question is always okay different methodology it's going to feel different it's going to sound different but is it different theology and we're looking some of this as we go through so the Synod of dort discussing something that we would later call limited atonement well Calvin himself doesn't really discuss this or if he even mentions something anywhere close to this idea he is unwilling to discuss it he being a humanist is more linguistic historical grammatical scholastics though we'll delve a bit deeper and do certain theological areas and the realm of philosophy you do see a tussle back and forth between those who are attempting to ground Christian philosophy on a firm base and those who strike out for new ground in the country of France you have the person of Descartes Descartes was the man who argued I think therefore I am which is one of the more over wrought and underappreciated slogans and all of the history of philosophy decart assistants to grounding or a rationale for confidence in our ability to rationalize or reason our way to certain topics in many ways is very much like a late medieval theologian or philosopher something like Aquinas all these thinkers the Middle Ages are debating the limits of faith and reason Descartes is really in this category but where the cart goes is that towards the Scriptures not towards the Bible as either the soul foundation for our intellectual understanding of God in truth nor does he see it as part of the equation per se the slogan I think therefore I am in other words becomes a real individualistic appreciation that because I can be confident that if I'm thinking I'm not being made to think therefore the fact that I am thinking things itself is a given doesn't have to be proven and from that he builds up a case of what we today call epistemology which is how do we know anything the courts answer is I know because I am knowing and if I'm knowing something the very fact that I know anything means that I'm thinking it therefore because I'm thinking I must exist now again this is one of those great moments in philosophy drinking for new students they get a little bit of brain cramp going on trying to figure out why he is arguing this and we're not gonna go into this now but what we're seeing happen here is a development within the areas of philosophy that are going to begin moving step-by-step towards enlightenment philosophy increasingly away from traditional foundations of the church with a Bible and increasingly in favor of rational thought and philosophy as the foundation of where they're going okay so that's philosophy in the algae what about the arts what about music what about discoveries what about all these wonderful things well the 17th century is the age that we call the Baroque period and Baroque if you want a simple definition it's just a form of the Arts that is elaborate or exaggerated so Baroque architecture is the kind of architecture that is almost gaudy at times it's so overwrought and there's so many intricacies going on Baroque music people like Bach and Vivaldi and pakka bell Baroque music is again very ornate elaborate has a certain affection to it in its worst form it's affected in saccharine kind of boring that it's best it has twists and turns in the music or in the art that you just simply can't escape from in the Fine Arts you see the rise of one of my favorite painters Vermeer if you just hold up Vermeer's paintings they are at times nearly mirror sharp the complexity of it the detail of it now we're pretty certain in the modern world that what Vermeer is using is some type of technology to be able to do this there's some type of mirror system some type of perspective system that allows them to get this just right but if you hold up Vermeer to something that was going on in the early 16th century there is this unmistakable sense that you have this massive leap forward in terms of color precision and this real complex again baroque complex understanding of the arts so we look at the 17th century in terms of culture in terms of thinking writing and expression these kinds of things you have to understand that much of what's going on here is a flowering of the engagement of multiple cultures multiple movements and multiple styles that are more maximalist in the Baroque sense than they are minimalist or reactionary now what does this have to do with reality in church history well one of the things that's often pointed out is that because of the tendency amongst Protestants particularly amongst Reformed folks and some in the Anglican world usually very often that the arts in particular in music or being supported principally by Catholics as they are moving into the 17th century they begin to realize that Protestants like more simple and plain style churches and so the Catholic Church really steps up and begins to fund and support the Arts in numerous elaborate ways just as they did you might say in the beginning of the Renaissance the Baroque era in other words this flowering of all kinds of intellectual and artistic in some ways is shaped by the Protestant Reformation Protestants will respond usually in the intellectual world a number of the scientists in fact in philosophers and thinkers and writers from this period come from a relatively Protestant perspective that's unfair of course there are leading intellectuals who are Catholic or perhaps no religion at all by the end but no matter what what you're seeing again is a real development and often the 17th century is so elaborate in so complex the style here is very effective it's very in-your-face ok but what about the politics well the countries that are in play in Europe and in the new world or relatively familiar to us from the 16th century we will all remember the Holy Roman Empire which is often referred to as Germany though it doesn't quite compare to what would become modern Germany there's the Holy Roman Empire run by the Habsburg dynasty the great 16th century figure of Charles the fifth of course had been the head of the Holy Roman Empire moving west we get to France still a powerhouse in fact throughout the 17th century rising even further to be at equal at least in their own eyes and attempting to galvanize itself to be the main player in Europe up in Britain you have of course England which goes through some calamitous events in the 17th century you have the move from the Tudor dynasty with Elizabeth the 1st and the Shakespearean Age into the tumultuous decades of the Stuart dynasty which James the first King James coming to the throne after Elizabeth and his son Charles the first becoming the catalyst through the way that he ruled for the calamitous and the important English Civil War Scotland had always been its own Kingdom though of course England from time to time attempted to subject it to its own authority well during the 17th century you see the coming together in the person of James the Scottish crown and the English crown and so Scotland England at one point pretty intractable enemies become one nation least a united front with two different cultures beneath and then all around Europe as a whole you have other kingdoms that play less of an important role in terms of religion or in terms of the ongoing effects of the Protestant Reformation but they are important to note Spain at this point really seeks to dominate and control a significant portion of Europe a lot of its activity during this century is driven by the fact that they were amongst the first to go to the new world in to conquer and they are constantly shipping back supplies and gold and trade from the new world in particular South America and a few key areas in North America down in Italy you still have a pretty divided subset patchwork of all these different regions and of course the big man on the block there is the Pope himself controlling a majority of the central band of the Italian peninsula so these are the names these are the countries that are gonna be in play all throughout the 17th century to get a sense of what's going on here though all throughout the 16th century the Habsburg dynasty and the Holy Roman Empire had really been the massive important and unrivaled champion of all the kingdoms there in Europe France and England of course were major dynasties but they couldn't compare on their own nor could they rise up to be a challenge to the Emperor himself throughout the 16th century there were a number of times where different kingdoms different countries banded together as a whole to attempt to take on the Holy Roman Empire but these user came to no avail it's in the 17th century we actually begin to see a decline in the Holy Roman Empire from its status as the unrivaled powerhouse in Europe it doesn't go away but what we're going to see throughout the 17th century historians often call this a real calamitous century particularly the first half there are too so many wars going on not only for religion but also for a power grab the first half of the century is marked by the 30 Years War which is the most significant in bloody war actually a series of Wars to find the end of the religious Reformation in terms of trying to take each other out you might say 1648 often marks the end of the 30 Years War with a great treaty that eventually brought to an end the hostilities between Catholicism and Protestantism but the shake up of Europe as a result of all these wars is significant and it actually affects not only the 17th century but all subsequent history thereafter so for example the context for the rise of Germany as a nation which will happen in the later century happens as a result the fact that within the Holy Roman Empire itself there are a number of folks who don't necessarily detach themselves fully from the Empire but as a result of the wars they gain relative security and isolation from involvement or control from the Emperor himself so to stake the Swiss region's the Swiss cantons by definition were part of the whole Roman Empire but as a result of their resistance to the Emperor their independence becomes more or less de-facto position as we get into the 17th century France begins to rise up in a way that it never could before it becomes really a powerhouse and it always had been something of a powerhouse but that really comes into its own more importantly the Netherlands the Netherlands had always been a United sort of strip of land there above the Holy Roman Empire well they go into their own Civil War Philip the second the husband of Mary the first back in the 16th century Bloody Mary had attempted to suppress Protestant impulses there as the decades were on it turned into an outright civil war and when we get to the council of dort and some of the other things that are going on within the 17th century we're going to see that Netherlands begins to split in half which is why to this day you have Netherlands to the north which is Protestant historically and to the South you have Belgium which is predominantly Catholic over the years this split allows the northern part of the Netherlands which retains the name of the Netherlands to really foster a golden age in fact people often marvel at how fast the Netherlands being such a small plot of land in the context of the wider space of Europe is able to become in some ways the epicenter economically for all of Europe it's a golden age there in terms of the arts I've already mentioned Vermeer and other painters and artists and things there in the Netherlands but there is also founded the Dutch trading company one of the most important groups to really capitalize on the expansion and the widespread abilities of ships to bring trade to and from Europe and so the Netherlands becomes a Protestant powerhouse economically and lastly when we turn our attention to England itself we've already mentioned England in the civil war but England particularly serves to become involved interested in the new world it's in 1607 for example that the city of Jamestown is founded named actually for King James himself the king there who took over after Elizabeth it's in 1620 just a few years later that the Mayflower takes off and what's happening here is there's all kinds of fights and tussles with in England and within the Anglican Church that are from the context of the English Civil War but that give us so much of the world that we have some knowledge of and some experience of it's in this entry with a king of England begins to crack down on those who are not conforming to the English church and so men like John Bunyan get thrown into prison because they feel the need to meet and have their own church and not be part of the English church we see John Milton riding Paradise Lost John Owens one of the most important theologians of the entirety of the 17th century is writing here in the midst of all this chaos of the English Civil War and the fight back and forth as to what it means to be Anglican and so the Puritan movement really gets going here in the 17th century and as a result as it transitions over to the new world you have founded a transplant of this Puritan ethos flowing out of the 16th century into the 17th century it begins to shape the context theologically and in terms of church life for what would become the American colonies so in the end this 18th century if you want just a real simple definition of what happens here it's a time of upheaval change and renewal both the arts and in the political arena as well as in the church and so as we go through the lectures about the 17th century always keep in mind that where you see these hot-blooded fights back and forth between groups that today might very well get along or just agree to disagree keep in mind that this is the first sort of spasm of groups of people saying that they don't want to be part of the wider society that they want to voluntarily separate themselves whether it's in the church life or at times politically different nations saying we don't want to be a part of this collective Empire or something like this the upheaval in other words the change the rapid change as well as the wars in the 17th century mean that this is one of the more important centuries for transitioning Europe and the new world out of the late medieval and early modern period and increasingly towards the modern world you

Channel: Ryan Reeves

Views: 118,412

Rating: 4.7936506 out of 5

Keywords: Holy Roman Empire (Country), 17th Century (Event), James I Of England (Monarch), Baroque (Art Period/Movement), Charles II Of England (Monarch), Dissenters, Religious Society Of Friends (Religion), Protestantism (Religion), Protestant Reformation (Event), Puritan (Religion), Calvinism (Religion)

Id: 2UfjqOXG4Ok

Length: 23min 58sec (1438 seconds)

Published: Sat May 30 2015