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THE TUDOR AGE

The first Tudor is Henry vll. He bacame king after he won the war of the roses, and he started the Tudors
( he created this dynasty by marrying Elizabeth of York, so the Tudors appeared thanks to the
combination between the Lancasters and the Yorks). Hvll brought three new social classes.

He ruled until 1509, when his son, Hvlll became king and he received a stable country, on its way to
modernisation. The rule of Hvlll brought a new age in England’s history, characterized by two main
events: the Renasissance ( it affected the culture) and the Reformation (it affected the religion). So, the
Middle Ages finished and we have the beginnings of the Reformation in England.

The Renaissance appeared for the fisrts time in Florence, Italy, in the same time with the Platonic Age. It
represents the Rebirth of the Antiquity, so the main purpose is to live in a way in which the Romans and
the Greeks used to do. It opposed to the Middle Ages and it spread in Europe.

The Renaissance introduces a new concept : the humanism (the man is the main object of study). It tries
to understand the human nature, how it works, but the human still remains a secret, a mistery, we can’t
know him totally. During the Middle Ages, God was put in the center of the Universe. The Renaissance
put the man in the center. It is not a total replacement beecause it is known that the man is the main
creation of God, so through man, we can observe God’s invinite power to create beautiful things, man
represents amother way to know God well, through man, we can see God’s beauty. The artists of the
period tried to explain this beauty through their creation.

We have another concept, the idea of homo universalis (a man who is a genius in several domaines; the
artists of the Renaissance were genius, like Da Vinci). The idea of devellopping yourself appeared, the
men understood that they need to cultivate their mind (going to schools), to learn more and more, but
also to have a healthy life (to have HEALTHY MIND in a HEALTHY BODY).

The Renaissance put the base of the moder science and we have several scientists like Copernic and
Galilei.

Galileli is known thanks to his astonomycal knowledges: he discovered that the earth turns around the
sun. This information shocked the Church because they believed that the earth is the mosty important
planet in the Solar System (because there are humans living on it) and should be in the center.

Copernic discovered that the earth wasn’t flat, was elipitic, round. Before this thing, the people believed
that England is at the end of the world. Columbus, following Copernic’s ideas proved that the earth was
round, reaching to a new continent, South America (he believed that he reached India and died with this
idea in his mind).

In England, the Renaissance changed the mentality : life became more open and the countryside gained
a great importance. After Hvlll, his daughter, Elizabeth l brought the strong point of the Renaissance (the
multiplication of schools and faculties). The people returned to the ancient Greek and Roman
phylosophy. So the new theories changed the people’s vision and encouraged the wish of learning.

The Reformation is the other greaty event that affected England until today, it affected the religion and it
took place in the time of Henry vlll, he is known thanks to this. Before the Reformation, England was a
catholic country, like all the western countries of the Europe and the Church was under the authority of
the Pope in the Vatican. Hvlll was alredy married with Catherine of Aragon, who was married in the past
with Henry’s elder brother, but he died and Hvlll politically married her. She gave him a daughter, Mary
Tudor and after that she wasn’t able to have any children.

It seems that, on his death bed, Hvll, asked his son, Hvlll, to have a boy in order to assure the continuity
of the throne. The only possibility for Henry to have a boy was to separate Catherine and to marry again,
but this thing was impossible because the Catholic Church had already forbidden this. There was another
danger : a conflict with Spain (Catherine came from Spain). The Reformation allowed Henry to marry
again and he decied (in a personal way) to break all links with the Vatican.

The man who created the Reformation was a German, Martin Luther, a monk and a teacher at The
University of Wittenberg. During that period, people went in many pilgrimages, in order to show the
faith in God (Rome and Compostela were the places of doing pilgrimages).

Mrtin went to Rome and when he saw that the people were selling fake pardons he became very upset.
When he came back he decided to write some principles, in order to rebring the great image of the
Catholic Church. He wrote 95 theses and he nailed them of the doors of the university so that everyone
could read them. (95 theses of the power of eficacity of endaungents).

The Reformation and Martin Luther were helped by a man (Guttenberg) and his invention (the printing
press, which made easier the transimision of the information). There are the three most important
priciples in Luther’s concept:

1. Sola fides- only faith in God can save you. If you want to be saved, you have to believe.
2. Sola scriptura- only by reading the Bible (the Book in which you cand find any answer) you obtain
salvation. The Latin in the churches was replaced by the national language and the Bible started
being translated.
3. Theologia crucis- only the crucifix can save you. This is why the Protestant Churches has no saints
or holly pictures, only the crucifix.

In England, the Reformation said that you could obtain salvation only by faith, by descovering Christ and
by breaking the links with the Vatican, which would be called an enemy. The Protestant Churches no
longer exist under the authorithy of the Pope.

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