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Renaissance
The Renaissance was a crucial period in European history, which started roughly around the fourteenth century and lasted till the seventeenth century. It marked a process of creativity and cultural change in Europe, which first started in Italy during the 1300s and gradually spread around the entire continent in the subsequent two centuries. In the twelfth century, Italy witnessed an economic boom and as a result the people were wealthier and cities and towns grew at an accelerated rate. This phenomenon gave birth to a new breed of intellectuals who were termed as the ‘ middle elite’. The educated middle class people who had a lot of leisure time, thanks to the economic prosperity, started widening their rational thoughts and begun questioning the established rules, particularly the religious dictums of that era. The increase in trade activities also facilitated transfer of ideas between various cultures, as the historically insular and homogeneous European society, now begun to transfer into a connected and dynamic society.
The economic activity dissolved the barriers between societies, and people of different cultures were able to interact freely. This broadened the horizons of the world views, an average citizen had during that period. As the intellectuals saw other people who had different set of ideals and beliefs, they started questioning the authenticity of their belief system to which they have adhered for so long. Naturally some of them defended their ideas more vehemently, but even these groups of thinkers were forced to introspect into their philosophical hubris, to find justifications to defend their beliefs. This breed of intellectuals of the ‘ renaissance era’ sparked extensive influx of ideas, and propelled the establishment various Universities in places such as Oxford, Paris, and Cambridge etc. Some of the famous intellectuals of this period include, William Shakespeare, Galileo, Niccolo Machiavelli, Martin Luther, Thomas More and Leonardo Da Vinci.
This intellectual movement was able to spread so swiftly and influence such great numbers of people, thanks to the most important invention of the fifteenth century – the Printing Press. A German printer named Johannes Gutenberg discovered this wonderful machine in the year 1450, thus facilitating rapid communication of ideas. The ideas and the thoughts of intellectuals which was formerly available for discussion only among the elite, was now made accessible to the masses, via the printing technology. Though, there existed a large scale illiteracy, among the common people during this period, the available of a printed material, spurred many commoners to get educated. The other major effect of the printing press is the reduction in the cost of the book. Since now large volumes of printed material were produced through this technology, the cost of the books showed a heavy decline and thus books became affordable to more number of people. Thus there was a twofold effect – the literary rate increased and so were the accessibility to books.
A renaissance printing press was equipped to give an output of 3600 pages a day, which is a drastic change from the meager number of hand copied transcripts, which were used for circulation of ideas before this invention. In the sixteenth century the production of books increased enormously with close to 200 million copies being produced. This technology was not only used to spread the modern ideas of that time, but also helped to circulate the ancient transcripts among the populace, by reprinting them using the Printing Press. Thus the significance of the printing press technology to the renaissance era is comparable to that of the importance of internet in today’s world. Ideas of the middle class thinkers, who had the time and education to question the establishment, were able to reach the populace with the help of this technology. If needed, the ideas were also circulated secretively, if it was against powerful establishments such as the Government or Church. Thus the dissented intellectuals were able to avoid censorship or persecution, by circulating pamphlets without the knowledge of the authorities. Inquisition was the major output of the renaissance era. And the initiation of this inquisition and finding the answers about life and the universe were done by the many intellectuals of this era, and these ideas reached the masses thanks to one of the greatest inventions of mankind, the Printing Press.

Reference Pages

Encyclopaedia Brittanica. The invention of typography—Gutenberg (1450?) Web. October 31, 2013 Retrieved from http://www. britannica. com/EBchecked/topic/477017/printing/36836/The-invention-of-typography-Gutenberg-1450
Philip Van Ness Myers, Mediæval and Modern History . Boston: Ginn and Company, 1905, pp. 251-274 Web. October 31, 2013. Retrieved from http://www. shsu. edu/~his_ncp/Renn. html