TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Renaissance in Northern Europe
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Objectives
• Explain how the printing revolution shaped
European society.
• Describe the themes that northern European
artists and writers explored.
• Analyze the ideas of northern humanist thinkers.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Terms and People
• Johann Gutenberg – printer who invented a
printing press with movable type
• Flanders – a prosperous region of cities in the
present-day Netherlands, France, and Belgium,
where the northern Renaissance began
• Albrecht Dürer – German artist who spread
Renaissance ideas in northern Europe
• engraving – a technique in which an artist etches
a design on a metal plate using acid; the plate is
then used to make prints
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Terms and People (continued)
• vernacular – the everyday spoken language of
the common people
• Erasmus – Dutch religious scholar who called for
the translation of the Bible into the vernacular
• Thomas More – English humanist who described
an ideal society in Utopia
• utopian – idealistic or visionary; usually used to
describe a perfect society
• Shakespeare – the leading English language poet
and playwright of the Renaissance
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
How did the Renaissance develop in
northern Europe?
As the Renaissance began to flower in Italy,
northern Europe was still recovering from the
ravages of the Black Death.
But by the 1400s, the cities of the north began
to enjoy economic growth and the wealth
needed to develop their own Renaissance.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
In 1455 Johann Gutenberg printed a complete
edition of the Bible using a printing press with
movable type.
• Printed books were far easier to
The printing produce than hand-copied books.
revolution
transformed • More people had access to a
Europe. broad range of learning.
• By 1500, the number of books in
Europe had risen from a few
thousand to between 15 and 20
million.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Northern Renaissance began in the
prosperous cities of Flanders.
• Many painters focused
From Flanders, on the common people,
ideas spread to creating scenes of
Spain, France, and everyday life.
England.
• Many writers also
focused on the common
people.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Northern Renaissance painters focused on realism
in their art.
• New oil paints were made using oils from linseed,
walnuts, or poppies.
• More realistic colors reflected light, adding depth and
glow.
• In the 1400s, the paintings of Van Eyck were filled with
rich and realistic detail.
• Pieter Bruegel used vibrant colors to portray scenes of
peasant life.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Albrecht Dürer Peter Paul Rubens
applied Renaissance blended the realistic
painting techniques tradition of Flemish
to engraving. painters with
classical themes.
Dürer is called “the A humanist of the 1600s,
Leonardo of the North” Rubens used themes from
because of his varied classical history and
interests and his role in mythology.
spreading Renaissance
ideas in the late 1400s.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Northern humanist scholars stressed education
and classical learning.
• They hoped to bring about religious and
moral reform.
• Some began writing in the vernacular, the
everyday language of ordinary people.
• This appealed to the new middle class that was
arising in northern towns and cities.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The Dutch priest Desiderius Erasmus was one
of the major religious scholars of the age.
• Erasmus called for
Born in 1466, translation of the Bible
Erasmus helped into the vernacular.
spread humanist
ideas to a wider • He believed a person’s
public. chief duties were to be
open-minded and show
good will to others.
• He also sought reform
in the Church.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Sir Thomas More was Francois Rabelais
an English humanist was a French
who pushed for social humanist who
reforms. used comedy.
In Utopia, he described In Gargantua and
an ideal society where all Pantagruel, two giants
are educated and people on a comic adventure
live in harmony. The offer opinions on religion
book gave us the word and education.
utopian.
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
The towering figure of northern Renaissance
literature was the English playwright and
poet William Shakespeare.
Between 1590 and
1613, he wrote 37
plays which are still
performed today,
including:
• Romeo and Juliet
• Hamlet
• A Midsummer Night’s
Dream
TEKS 8C: Calculate percent composition and empirical and molecular formulas.
Shakespeare explored Renaissance ideals such
as the complexity of the individual.
Well-known quotes from Shakespeare include
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be” and “A rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.”
He used common language understood by all and
added 1,700 words to the English language.
