Earlier Renaissance

What do you define as the Renaissance occurring?

That is, what events and discoveries and controversies?
 
The renaissance came to be for several reasons:

1. The increased centralisation and thus resources of government. France was forced to become like England in this regard to win the Hundred Years' War.

2. The exchange of trade and ideas between the Islamic world and the Christian world due to the crusades and the reconquisita.

3. The flight of learned Hellenists from the Otttomans as they over-ran what remained of the Eastern Roman Empire.

4. The increase in trade and establishment of stable bullion currencies in replacement of barter (and banks, exchange offices etc.)

Any and all of these scenarios can be forced through earlier and thus create an earlier renaissance.
 
The renaissance came to be for several reasons:

1. The increased centralisation and thus resources of government. France was forced to become like England in this regard to win the Hundred Years' War.

2. The exchange of trade and ideas between the Islamic world and the Christian world due to the crusades and the reconquisita.

3. The flight of learned Hellenists from the Otttomans as they over-ran what remained of the Eastern Roman Empire.

4. The increase in trade and establishment of stable bullion currencies in replacement of barter (and banks, exchange offices etc.)

Any and all of these scenarios can be forced through earlier and thus create an earlier renaissance.


You need the plague as well.
The plague was the great equaliser and completely changed the common people, their world and their place in it.
Out of that developed an elite of Nouveau riche who used their wealth for patronage of arts and science.

I don't think the renaissance was possible without the social change/progress caused by the plague.
 
There was already such an "elite" forming, and the lot of the peasants changing isn't really producing a middle class (for want of a better word).

Already as of the time the plague hit, that is.
 
There was already such an "elite" forming, and the lot of the peasants changing isn't really producing a middle class (for want of a better word).

Already as of the time the plague hit, that is.


Oh yes it is;)
The feudal system was based on the believe that everyone had his place in the world and to challenge this is blasphemy.
This was proven wrong when everybody regardless of status/rank died from the plague.
The remaining peasants found themselves in a land of plenty and in real demand - talk about labour shortage.
Suddenly you could advance based on your knowledge and the sweat on your skin.
Jobs that were previously frowned apon by the church - banker, trader - became suddenly important and socially accepted.
The Fuggers were weavers, the Medici doctors later textile traders , neither family of any importance before the plague.
100 years later they practically ruled Europe and the church.
 
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Oh yes it is;)
The feudal system was based on the believe that everyone had his place in the world and to challenge this is blasphemy.
This was proven wrong when everybody regardless of status/rank died from the plague.
The remaining peasants found themselves in a land of plenty and in real demand - talk about labour shortage.
Suddenly you could advance based on your knowledge and the sweat on your skin.
Jobs that were previously frowned apon by the church - banker, trader - became suddenly important and socially accepted.
The Fuggers were weavers, the Medici doctors later textile traders , neither family of any importance before the plague.
100 years later they practically ruled Europe and the church.

The feudal system had seen this already starting to crumble. You could say that the plague accelerated the process, but the idea that "everyone had his place in the world" weakned as people like the Fuggers gained the ability to be more than that, not by some plague benefit in the sense of "suddenly, society stopped preventing weavers from become bankers".

I think we need to make a distinction (when looking at the Fuggers and Medici and the like) between "opportunities only available in a post-plague world" and the progress from nobody to somebody happening to take place in those years.
 
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The major reasons the Renaissance started in Italy were:

  1. Lots of small competing states in close proximity. Any one of the states could try something new, and if it seemed to be working, everyone else had to adapt in order to keep up.
  2. An economic boom based on Mediterranean trade. Lot of new resources available in the economy, and they're not tied to feudal agriculture (which would reinforce the existing medieval power structure rather than undermining it).
  3. A sudden influx of upper-class refugees from the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. A lot of these refugees were literate, and they carried with them the living continuation of the Greco-Roman intellectual tradition. They were also people who were upper class in culture and status, but not part of the feudal system.
  4. Strong cultural identification with ancient Rome. The early Renaissance, especially in Italy, was largely seen as a revival of Classical Greek and Roman ideas and social order rather than something entirely new, which gave it a mask of respectability in an environment that placed a very high value on tradition.
1 and 2 were present in the Baltic/North-Sea coast of Europe and in the Rhine valley (Hanseatic League, etc), but not so much 3 and 4. Not sure how to introduce those or a reasonable substitute, although I suppose we could have some Hanseatic cities make a major policy of accepting Jewish and Muslim refugees from the Reconquest of Spain.

4 was present to a lesser extent in the Iberian Peninsula, along with a reasonable substitute for 3 from the territories reconquered from the Muslims. 2 would come a bit later during the age of discovery. 1 is the only thing you're really missing, and that only really went missing when Aragon and Castille (and later Portugal) merged into Spain, so I suppose Spain could be a good candidate for an alternate renaissance if you could prevent unification without butterflying away the reconquest and the age of discovery.

I wonder if there's a viable way to have the Byzantine Empire split up politically without also collapsing economically and culturally, to set the stage for a Greek or Anatolian Renaissance.
 
I'm not sure a political division is necessary for the Renaissance, at least not to the level a city-state Italy.

I think it had a role, but I think it was more the general existence of many polities in Europe in general - since the Renaissance spread from Italy quite nicely. But multiple competing polities has been part of the European system since the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

And why can't the Byzantine Empire have its own renaissance as a period of (re)discovery as it better explores/uncovers its own ancient past?

It wouldn't be the same as the Italian period, but then, the Renaissance in England wasn't the same either.
 
One way to have the Renaissance in the visual arts speed up fairly quickly is to reduce some of the conservative elements of later 14th c. Florentine painting, since it went kinda static after Giotto and Siena had a bit of a period of being the main driver of innovation only to be forgotten. The other problem was that the Lorenzetti brothers(who were starting to try and relate some of the International Gothic leanings of Siena to what we would see as being more proto-renaissance) died in the plague. If you can have them survive the plague somehow and then get invited to work in Florence* it might push things a bit further faster.
*Florence would have to be in better shape for this to happen, and that would help a lot period, although it could also entrench a more gothic sensibility period. Maybe not have the Bardi and Peruzzi banks collapse in 1343 to start?
EDIT: The tricky part is getting things sped up in the Netherlands(Netherlandish masters were very influential in 15th century Italy) too. Anyone know enough about 14th century art there to comment?
 
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The feudal system had seen this already starting to crumble. You could say that the plague accelerated the process, but the idea that "everyone had his place in the world" weakned as people like the Fuggers gained the ability to be more than that, not by some plague benefit in the sense of "suddenly, society stopped preventing weavers from become bankers".

I think we need to make a distinction (when looking at the Fuggers and Medici and the like) between "opportunities only available in a post-plague world" and the progress from nobody to somebody happening to take place in those years.


I see what you mean and agree. The plague accelerated a social progress that would have eventually occured in the long run. However this would have put the renaisssance at a later date or at least excluded a lot of Up and Comers from participating.

I think that people tend to greatly underestimate what a blessing in a horrible disguise the plague for european society was. For me, this was the OTL POD when Europe left the rest of the world behind.
 
I see what you mean and agree. The plague accelerated a social progress that would have eventually occured in the long run. However this would have put the renaisssance at a later date or at least excluded a lot of Up and Comers from participating.

Perhaps. There was too much happening as is for it to be meaningfully halted, I think. But the precise mixture occurring in such a "timely" fashion being assisted by the plague boosting the well being of the surviving commoners (as in, those not in the aristocracy or clergy) is believable.

I think that people tend to greatly underestimate what a blessing in a horrible disguise the plague for european society was. For me, this was the OTL POD when Europe left the rest of the world behind.

It certainly was exceedingly convenient in how it was horribly destructive but in a way that society could recover from, if different than it had been before the plague.

Rather like a phoenix's pyre, instead of merely ripping the society in question to shreds the way the devastating European diseases ruined native (American) societies.

Not sure I agree on it being the POD. In many ways, Europe was already moving in that direction.

But that's not meant to argue, just that Europe by the point of the plague already had a good chance of being something other than a backwater. Maybe it would take longer, maybe not. But the systems were in place or being moved into place.
 
I wonder if there's a viable way to have the Byzantine Empire split up politically without also collapsing economically and culturally, to set the stage for a Greek or Anatolian Renaissance.

I think the main problem here is trade.
The italian city states were on major trade routes. And do not forget that pilgrims from and to Rome had to pass by. Ideal situations for an exchange of ideas...(as well as the refugees from Constantinople)

The byzantine empire was "in the corner" and if memory serves me right had lost control of the eastern mediterranean sea to the Arabs and pirates.(please correct me if wrong) Trade was limited due to ongoing conflicts with, well, everyone.

But if the crusader kingdoms become stabil in the 12th century and survive, Constantinople is not sacked in 1204 and the Turks are beaten, safe travel between Europe and Jerusalem would bring "tourists" to the empire and trade between the Middle East and Europe will flourish leading to an earlier renaissance based in the empire.
 
It didn't start in Italy, nor did it start in the 14th century. :p

It started in Spain, during the Reconquista, when the Spanish rulers had the Muslim libraries translated into Latin.

If you wanted an earlier Renaissance, make the Reconquista happen faster. Maybe like what happened in Scarecrow's Song of Roland, where Charlemagne obtained the submission of that Muslim lord (who's name escapes me at the moment :eek:), and gains a big foothold in Spain.
 
It didn't start in Italy, nor did it start in the 14th century. :p

It started in Spain, during the Reconquista, when the Spanish rulers had the Muslim libraries translated into Latin.

If you wanted an earlier Renaissance, make the Reconquista happen faster. Maybe like what happened in Scarecrow's Song of Roland, where Charlemagne obtained the submission of that Muslim lord (who's name escapes me at the moment :eek:), and gains a big foothold in Spain.


That depends on your definition of renaissance.
You could argue that the reforms of Charlemagne were in fact a renaisssance, it just led nowhere as the time was not right.
But as Boom22 said
And if not in Italy then where?

meaning he is talking about the italian renaissance as started by Francesco Petrarca.

However, Spain is a brilliant idea. That would work from as early as the 10th/11th century. If the Franks were to conquer Spain up to, say, Toledo and following the usual division of the country among the sons, you might end up with one frankish Spain with close links to the Westfranks and cultural exchange with the muslims in South Spain.
Santiago the Compostella as important place of pilgrimage would constantly bring in new people and ideas from and to Spain.
It could work. :)
 
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