Top Highlights

• The previous order fractured and the Christian world began to re-form in two distinct parts. Gutenberg’s new printing technology had burst upon Europe, and people were learning more about the distant world than they ever had before. Curiosity bloomed, hunger for knowledge erupted, and science as we know it began. On top of this, virgin continents w...
• The loss of the Roman Church’s special legitimacy had serious political consequences. With their legitimacy, they also lost the obedience of princes and kings. This was due to the Reformers, but not only due to them. As people rejected the Church’s demands on how people must live (as peasants, tied to the land and with no choices about their lives)...
• made literacy and learning prized things, and being “smart” made the young man a desirable mate. Instead of superior thinking being punished (as it normally is), this explosion of new ideas led to “smart” being rewarded. This created a dynamic intellectual culture, especially in the north, where it was less opposed.
• St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (which Pope Gregory XIII celebrated).
• The monarchs of southern Europe who were aligned with the Church had a very specific pattern of dealing with the new continents of the Americas. Settlers from the north of Europe had a completely differing pattern, and the effects of these patterns remain not only visible, but of massive effect, to this day.