AGES OF HISTORY

MODERN AGES

MODERN AGES• Modern Age, describes the historical timeline

after the Middle Ages. The beginning of the modern era started approximately in the 1500s. Many major events caused the Western world to change around the turn of the 16th century, starting with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fall of Muslim Spain, the discovery of the Americas in 1492, and Martin Luther's Protestant Reformation in 1517. In addition, the Age of Reason and Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, and the French Revolution in 1789.

MODERN AGESDuring this period of 336 years, the major milestones and events were:

• The Renaissance• Absolute Monarchy • Spanish Empire• Discovery of the Americas• Protestant Reformation• The Enlightenment and Age of Reason• French Revolution

THE RENAISSANCE• It was a cultural movement that spanned

roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. It literally means “rebirth” and its name is due that culture and society experience a transformation in Europe intellectuality, art and literature causing drastic social, politic and scientific changes. We are going to study more about it, next Unit.

ABSOLUTE MONARCHY• It was the form of government where the king or

monarch was the ultimate governing authority as head of state and government, so no other political power was on him. The transmission of power was hereditary and marital.

• In theory, the absolute monarch exercises total power over the land and people, but in practice the monarchy was counter-balanced by political rather than social castes of the realm: the aristocracy, clergy, bourgeoise, and proletarians.

ABSOLUTE MONARCHY• Absolutism along with the European monarchs

during Early Modern Times, was a the transition from feudalism to capitalism, around the 16th to the 19th century. Absolutism is characterized by the ending of feudal partitioning, consolidation of power with the monarch, rise of state power, unification of the state laws, and a decrease in the influence of the Church and the nobility.

• Absolute monarchs are also associated with the rise of professional standing armies, professional bureaucracies, the codification of state laws, and the rise of ideologies that justify the absolutist monarchy. Absolutist monarchs typically were considered to have the divine right of kings as a cornerstone of the philosophy that justified their power.

SPANISH EMPIRE• It consisted of the territories and colonies administrated

directly by Spain in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. In the peak of its power, it was one of the largest empires in world history, and one of the first global empires. Spain had emerged in the latter 1480s with a personally unified monarchy, by the marriage of the 'Catholic Monarchs' (los Reyes Catolicos), monarchs of the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. In 1492 they finally reconquered the Iberian peninsula from Islamic Moorish Al-Andalus, in the Battle of Granada, opening resources for exploration and colonization in what is today Spain. That same year Christopher Columbus commanded the first Spanish exploratory voyage west across the Atlantic Ocean, leading to Europe's eventual colonial engagement with the Americas.

DISCOVERY OF THE AMERICAS

• In the early modern period, the voyages of Christopher Columbus initiated European exploration and colonization of the American continents. Christopher Columbus was a navigator and an admiral for the Crown of Castile whose voyages to America are of great significance in western history; particularly his original voyage of 1492, which resulted in what is widely referred to as the Discovery of America, although he did not actually reach the South American mainland until his third voyage in 1498.

PROTESTANT REFORMATION• The Protestant Reformation was the European Christian reform

movement that established Protestantism as a constituent branch of contemporary Christianity. It began in 1517 when Martin Luther published The Ninety-Five Theses, and concluded in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia that ended one hundred and thirty-one years of consecutive European religious wars.

• The Protestant Reformation began as an attempt to doctrinally reform the Catholic Church, effected by Western European Catholics who opposed “false doctrines and ecclesiastic malpractice” regarding to the teaching and the sale of indulgences, and simony (selling and buying of clerical offices). The reformers used these as evidence of the systemic corruption of the church’s hierarchy, including the Pope.

PROTESTANT REFORMATION

• Martin Luther and his spiritual predecessors had attempted to reform the Catholic Church. The Protestant Reformation began on 31 October 1517, where Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences at the All Saints' Church (a university notice board), the theses debated and criticized the Church and the Pope, but concentrated upon the selling of indulgences and doctrinal policies about: purgatory, particular judgement, Mariology, the intercession of and devotion to the saints, most of the sacraments, clerical celibacy, including monasticism, and the authority of the Pope.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND AGE OF REASON

• Early 17th century philosophy is often called the Age of Reason or Age of Rationalism and is considered to succeed the Renaissance philosophy era and precede the Age of Enlightenment.

• It started with the work of René Descartes philosophy. The period is typified in Europe by philosophers who present unified systems of the natural and logical sciences. Immanuel Kant classified his predecessors into two schools: the rationalists and the empiricists in terms of a supposed conflict between these schools.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND AGE OF REASON

• The former were distinguished by the belief that, in principle, all knowledge can be gained by the power of our reason alone; the latter rejected this, believing that all knowledge has to come through the senses, from experience. Thus the rationalists took mathematics as their model for knowledge, and the empiricists took the physical sciences. Given these facts, the period saw the birth of some new political, religious and social thoughts.

FRENCH REVOLUTION

• The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of radical social and political disorder in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society experienced a transformation where privileged social classes where turned down by liberal political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights.

FRENCH REVOLUTION

• The storming of the Bastille prison in Paris is regarded as being the landmark event that led to the social disorder. This was done in the attempt to gain arms and ammunitions from the prison. Inspired by this event the peasants revolted against feudal lords eventually freeing themselves of the unfair contracts that they were signed into. Finally, it ended with the execution of the monarchs and the further Proclamation of Human Rights.