Question- What was the political and religious views during renaissance?

Answer -

Early modern European political thought is notable for its considerable variety and complexity. The broad range of arguments and themes developed between c. 1350 and c. 1650 reflect the particularly swift rate of change in, Europe's olitical, religious, and geographical landscape. In the 14th century, as the monarchies north and west of the Alps began a process of political consolidation that gradually ended feudalism, the city-states of Italy began to develop systematic theories of popular sovereignty and celebrations of active. citizenship. The optimism of humanist political thought suffered a major setback during the French invasion of Italy and ensuing Italian wars, a traumatic context that gave rise to the pessimistic realism of Machiavelli and Guicciardini. In the 16th century, humanism's political assumptions spread north and were further developed by Christian humanists such as Thomas More and Erasmus. Initially an Italian phenomenon, humanism became an important aspect of western European political culture concurrent with the 16th-century Reformation. Political thought of the Reformation era, guided at first by bellicose figures such as Luther, Calvin, and Loyola, initially stressed obedience and uniformity, even as embattled French Calvinists began to develop theories of political resistance and German and Dutch Anabaptists began to champion voluntary religion, pacifism, and the separation of church and state.

Renaissance is a term used in many ways, each with its own justification and purpose. In the broadest sense it is a period of history covering roughly the two centuries from about 1350 to 1550, a time displaying a remarkable spirit of self-discovery and fulfillment, a recognition of human worth, and a dynamic outpouring of intellectual, artistic, and literary activity. In some ways it featured a cultural break with the ideas of the Middle Ages, yet in others it was a continuation or culmination of them. This should not be surprising since all history contains both continuity and change, congruity and contrast. Above all, we should recognize it as a dynamic age, a time when new ideas, institutions, and beliefs were becoming popular while many old patterns of thought and activity continued in force. The word renaissance means "rebirth," applied particularly to the revival of classical thought, literature, art, and style, but as commonly used it implies much more than that. It also refers to the rapid social and economic changes, new ideas and applications of political and international organization, and the overseas discoveries and expansion of Europe that were taking place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

For this essay I intend to focus more on the devotional, ideological, and moral aspects of the period, in what can be called the religious Renaissance, with features that most likely primed and led to the Reformation of the sixteenth century and revealed new insights into human-divine relations. It strils me that some of these insights were not only new but perhaps even revelatory, precursory to a later day when divine communication would again be known. We can see at times similarities between the intuitive penetration and perceptivity of some of these Renaissance personalities and the divine disclosures of modern prophets.

The transition from medieval to Renaissance life and thought was never precise nor strictly in accord with a pattern. It was a time of devastation and recovery, of upheaval and reconciliation. The underlying feature of early humanism was an explicit acceptance of the worth of human existence, that life has intrinsic value and meaning, and that the promotion of most worldly pursuits was both justifiable and meritorious. Thus the early Renaissance humanists challenged and opposed the medieval depreciation of mortal life.

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